The Queens of Winland
by Stephyblue
Summary: Quinn is an entitled princess, Rachel an exotic warrior. Two different girls, worlds apart. However, their fate is sealed when they are selected by the Goddess as eachother's mate. As enemies they grow up together, never realizing that the love they share, but never speak of - is actually the key to destroying their world or saving it. Magic, War and Faberry with wings. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Hi guys! Here is your #2 vote for story you wanted to see. I'm personally very glad this one was picked because it's my personal favorite. If you thought L&L was epic... this story I think will knock your socks off. Take care!  
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**Chapter 1**

**Quinn 1412**

I stare at the map on the table.

The edges are worn from people's fingers touching it. I have touched my fingers there too, but it isn't the same. Great leaders have come before me and it's their touches that have marred the maps perfection. Its not yet my time.

Someday it will be.

I imagine what it will be like when I'm Queen while the Inquisitor goes to the fireplace to stoke the embers. I can almost see it, me - grown like my mother and brave like her too, with massive white wings that can carry me across the kingdom and frighten my enemies. I will command an army of Winlean across the map.

It makes me smile because I can almost see it. The fire rages and it brightens the room. It makes the map that much brighter - my future that much clearer.

"What is that grin for, princess?"

I stop smiling when the Inquisitor's big hand comes to a rest beside mine. It is gnarled and twisted, like a hand that has taught every ruler in the history of the Kingdom. I have heard people say they are afraid of his hands, but he is my teacher, so I'm not.

I don't have many friends, but he is the closest I can count.

"I'm admiring our kingdom."

"And what part of our kingdom is this, Princess?" He pokes a finger at the grey outline of a city on the bone colored map before me. I know what it is, it is my home, and I'm a little concerned he has lost his mind. I haven't drilled on geography for several turns.

"Winland, but you know I know that."

I don't have to look up to know he is smiling. "I'm teaching you patience, Princess, one of the many other virtues of being the future Queen. And what is this?"

"The Black Chasm." On the map it is yellow and the outlines are black. It has always bothered me because the uniformity is amiss. "Is it really black or is it yellow like the map shows?" I tease finally lifting my eyes to the aged face above me. He has white hair that sticks out behind his ears and from them, I notice. He looks sagely to me, like someone who has all the answers of the world.

He laughs a little. "Not yellow, however it is so deep that the light doesn't touch the bottom. Down there, it is black."

I imagine it, a long scar in the ground so deep the sunlight can't reach as my fingers trace the image on the table before me.

"What is the best way to fortify a location like the chasm?"

"From above, flanking in a cross fire." Its an absent answer as I stare at the long scrolling map writing. It is written in a hand so perfect, so beautiful; it is hard to believe the land was wrought with the blood of those who will someday be my people.

"When I'm Queen, I want to visit all these places. From the mountains, to the sea."

"Princess, of course you may, but your place will be with your people here most likely." He gives me a meaningful look then. I frown. "You will have so much to do, it will be hard to leave and fly there."

"I'll go to the sea." I state definitively. "It's the only thing I want to see."

He makes a face, "and how would you defend your position with the water at your back?"

I laugh, I don't know why. I know the answer. It is as familiar to me as my own face. "I would fall back north toward where the forest line is on the beach and cut in behind it to a safe location."

"Then only because you can protect yourself, you may go there." He chuckles then. It is low and deep and fills up my ears in a way no voice ever could. It is a voice that has raised me and loved me in the best way possible. He has given me knowledge and because of him I will be a better Queen than there has ever been.

Except mother, and I'll never be even half as good as her without more study.

"I want to talk about economics now. I hope you are satisfied I have not forgotten the basics."

He narrows his eyes at me and then shakes his head with a smile. "Fine let's begin here." He sticks a finger right beside mine, right beside the ocean.

I trace the coast and my touch dots over the city he had just indicated, right on the edge where it should disappear into the water. I read the name, Emberlin.

"Here?"

He nods, pressing off the table. I watch him go a few steps away and then turn back to me. I feel like I have done something wrong because of how pensively he looks at me after a moment. "Right, yes well, the ruling family is Berry. They deal in rare antiquities and silk."

"That is where the Weave is."

"Yes, near there, in a valley to the north. Every scrap of silk in the kingdom comes through Emberlin, which affords them a very high ranking place in the hierarchy of families. It also means they get privilege."

"What kind of privilege?"

"They get special arrangements and favor, because they control the most widely used textile in the kingdom. The Thursian Winlean of Emberlin helped your family come to power as well, so they will always have favor with your house specifically."

"I remember the stories."

He is still looking at me with some type of displeasure, so I finally ask him why; as a future Queen I must always face everything head on.

That shocks his face out of his scowled expression. "I just feel that there is something important there. Do you feel it?"

I am not sure. "I don't feel things like that. I can't afford it, my future people can't afford it.

When the Inquisitor frowns I feel badly, so I try to feel something because I don't want him to be disappointed. I close my eyes and I try to feel something, _anything_. I don't know what I'm feeling for.

"No, I don't feel anything."

"Well, someday then. There is certainly a place for intuition on the throne," he says absently. When I open my eyes, he has a look I have never seen before. It doesn't necessarily frighten me. He is my friend after all.

"Lady Quinn?"

"Yes?"

It seems like he doesn't want to say the words, they get stuck in his throat because he is swallowing over and over. "I want you to be careful from this point on. Everything has changed since your divining as Queen, but even more will change soon."

I get in trouble often which is no longer acceptable for a future Queen. When I practiced swordsmanship with my brother, we would break things. I've been getting better about it, but when the Inquisitor says his words, I'm shamed all over again.

A Queen shouldn't be like me, and I know this. I stare down at my bare feet. "I will be."

"No, you don't understand," he says sharply as he puts his hand on mine.

No one ever touches me. It's taboo, against the law. I am the Princess and the future Queen. Only my family and my mate will ever be able to touch me. I feel like I should pull my hand back, if someone sees we will both be in trouble, but I can't.

When I look up, he is very nervous. His eyes go to the closed door that leads out of the small study, to the library and the rest of the palace beyond it. I follow his gaze as the fire crackles beside us. He rushes his words. "You have done nothing wrong, it is others I fear that will hurt you. Do not play as you once did with-"

His hand shifts at the same moment the door to the room bangs open. It's Gregory, my brother. I almost don't believe it is him, he never comes in here to study like I do, especially not since I was picked by the Goddess to be Queen.

"What were you saying _teacher_?" Gregory says the word like he doesn't mean it. Mockingly. "How can she not practice anymore?"

All at once, the warmth around me is different, and the Inquisitor moves. I feel it, like a fever has broken over me. "I was simply saying that she should be careful with her practice from now on. She will be a queen and have a mate picked for her soon, so she must take heed to not hurt herself."

"And who are you to dictate to the _Princess_?"

He says my title funny too. I remember the word is sarcasm and I frown.

I know Gregory hates me. I'm his little sister, but I will be Queen. I like to think that is why, though sometimes I fear he hates me because he _can't_ love anything. I have looked into his eyes before many times and ever since I can remember they have been dead and empty. I don't look at them anymore, it is easier that way. They are the same hazel as mine, but they frighten me.

He is the only person who does.

When Gregory bangs his hand down on the map, the sound of it cracks through the room, stopping my thoughts instantly. I flinch, turning to him and the fire that fills his eyes.

This is the only time they are alive.

"Answer me! Who are you to say if Quinn can practice or not?"

"Princess Quinn is my student as you should be Gregory."

Gregory turns his head like he can't hear. He is frightening when he is like this, when he is angry over something. "You would do well to address me by my title. I am a Prince."

"You must earn the title before it will be used."

I don't like how their voices are rising and when Gregory's face goes red, I know well enough that it is time for us to leave.

"The evening meal will be served soon!" I yell it out over them and hop down from the dais, landing hard on the stone floor. I usually use my wings to make my landings softer, but the sound directs Gregory's gaze to me. "Come on!" I urge. "We can't be late. Mother commands it."

He won't budge so I beckon him as I take a few steps back. He seems torn between staying to fight with the Inquisitor and coming with me. It is his duty to come to dinner. Gregory doesn't care about duty though, so I don't know what to do.

"Fine." When he strides past me, he gives me a shove with his shoulder. He is three turns older and much bigger than me, so it hurts.

I don't give him the satisfaction of seeing that though.

I go to follow him, but the clearing of the Inquisitor's throat stops me at the door. When I look back at him he is standing at the map, looking at it with a pained expression. In the firelight, he looks even more tired and the cracks in his skin are deeper than usual.

"It is good that this world will be in your hands."

"Mother and Father are here to protect us. You don't need to rely on me." I note lightly, reassuringly.

"They will not be forever, Lady Quinn. Someday it will only be you and your mate that keep this kingdom in balance, and then you will understand how grateful I am to the Goddess that you were given the crown." He smiles then thinly, and bows to me graciously. "Remember my words about your play, princess."

"I will, but-"

"Quinn!"

It's Gregory screaming and I hurry the door closed, leaving our conversation for another time. As I make my way through the halls to where my brother went, I do remember the Inquisitor's words. I remember the outline of the coast and how he said something important would be there. I try to remember what I was supposed to feel.

"You took forever!" Gregory cries exasperated as he jumps out to scare me from a blind corner. I scream he falls into step beside me with another shove. I don't know where he came from and it scares me that when he wants to he can move so quietly. Now that he isn't sneaking, his feet make a heavy sound on the stones and it echoes and bounces around us. "What did he say to you?"

I firm my lips into a line, because I know it will just make Gregory mad when I say it. Everything the Inquisitor says to me, everything _anyone _says to me, makes Gregory mad.

"I don't know."

He sighs. "That is why you will fail at the temple when you go."

I don't understand. "Why?"

With frightening speed, he pushes me to the wall. It's cold through the feathers of my wings and his hands are hard on my arms. I stare at his chest because if I look up, Gregory will lash out more.

"Because I have failed before and so should you! You will walk into the temple and the wooden chips will be there and the Goddess will not pick a mate for you. She will burn all of them, just like with me! You are too young and stupid, barely twelve turns. You don't know enough yet. You will disappoint everyone too."

"It isn't true. I am ready." I refute him, but it hurts to think of it anyway. I want a mate so I can be Queen. I have seen how angry Gregory has been the last few years and he doesn't even have a crown hanging in the balance.

Two times he has tried and failed. Twice he has walked into the temple and I have waited with mother and father outside and the Goddess has not picked for him. I heard father say once that it was an embarrassment. I don't want to upset anyone.

Gregory laughs. "You are as ready for a mate as you are to be Queen. Which is why I will rule someday and not you."

Now, I'm angry.

It is one thing to mock my intelligence, it is another entirely to mock my throne. "That isn't your choice! It is the Goddess that chose me and she will choose a mate for me too!" He makes me very angry when he talks about how I won't be Queen.

It is all I have ever wanted.

He lets me go, snickering as he pushes me ahead of him down the hall. "See, you're not ready." I don't understand how my angry outburst is somehow his proof.

I'm silent the rest of the way to the palace's grand hall. Well, almost the rest of the way; half way through our walk Gregory pulls a feather out of my wing and I yell at him to stop. He just laughs, pleased with himself as he twirls it in his hand. He is always pleased with himself even when he shouldn't be.

When he pushes the door open for himself, he looks back at me with a twisted smile. "I want you to know that I pray everyday that if you get a mate, they love you _just _like I do." He lets the door go, leaving me with the darkness of my thoughts.

I catch the wood before it can slam on me and with a final silent prayer, I ask that the Goddess doesn't listen to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

**Rachel 1412**

"Tell me one more story, Ahmiran?"

I say it from my prone position, staring up at a massive map of Winland that hangs against the wall in my father's home. My brother lulls his head toward me, but I find it hard to look at his face. When I finally move from the image of outlined mountains and the ocean to him, he pins me with a smile and it is big enough to crinkle the skin at his brown eyes.

"Aren't three enough for one night?"

I wish I could smile too, but I can't because of the heaviness in my heart. "It will never be enough."

It goes unspoken, that he is leaving in the morning. That I may never see him again. Here on the floor beside one another, pillows and blankets strewn to cover the cold limestone, I can't help wishing we were little children again.

He finally sighs with a roll of his eyes. "One more then. Which one?" He sits up, and I stare at his wings as he smoothes the feathers back into place.

I don't answer him.

"Rachel? Pick one."

I twist the bracelet around my wrist. The shadows on the ceiling from the fireplace draw my attention as I wonder what the last story is I want to hear from him, if it comes to that. "I can't choose."

"Rachel, just pick."

"You pick." I want to hear the story he choses.

After a moment of thought he drags himself up from his place beside me, reminding me of the little boy he once was when we began these rituals. Night after night, turn after turn, the stories he's told of our people still whisper in my imagination brought to life by him. I roll over to better see him as he retreats.

His hand traces the massive stone hearth and makes lines in the soot. "I want to tell you a story I've never told you before. You were always either too young, or father was around."

My eyes dart to the hallway that adjoins the central gathering room with the sleeping quarters. If I focus hard on the shadows, I swear I can hear the warble of my father's slumbering snore. When I look back, Ahmiran is rubbing the black from his fingers. He stands before the fireplace, the embers low and dying.

"What story?"

"The last story."

My chest tightens when he says it, because the look in his eyes says it too. "Don't say that."

"Just for tonight." He looks at me hard enough to see through me. "I want to tell you because you're the only person I have ever met that remembers all my stories. You do, don't you?"

"Of course I do. You have told them night after night all our lives."

"Then I'm going to ask that you remember this one, but never repeat it."

I blink at him blankly, "I don't understand."

"Just listen then, you'll understand when I tell you it."

I swallow the thickness in my throat, waiting.

When he begins, his voice is very different, nothing like the firelight storyteller that has made me laugh for turns. "It was said that when the First Mage touched our kingdom's fertile lands, it became cold and gray. And where the arid dust did not lay, the land writhed like a sea of fire until it hardened into great running rivers of rock."

"It was this that brought the Mage War, the eradication of the magic wielders. The people, starved to bags of bone, rose up and in droves went to their deaths against the mages that ruled the kingdom from the floating city of Winland. After all, it was better that- to die fighting for a cause as noble as the salvation of their home, rather than end their life entering the kingdom of our enemies."

"The silver lined streets of the capital ran red with blood and it spilled through the clouds, raining the world below in a wash of crimson. And when the cold season finally came, frozen daggers of red punctured the gray sky. In all it was the bloodiest revolution ever to mar the history of our proud people."

He pauses, pulling me from the image of a floating city seemingly held aloft by stalagmites of gore to the long shadows of my father's home again. "This is the story you know."

I tighten my hand in the blanket, nodding.

"The story you don't know, is that more than one mage escaped Winland. The night the people were finally able to overpower the massing of mages occupying Winland, there were two mages not found among the dead."

"One was the Inquisitor; he was a boy at the time, chained in a room ten times smaller than this. The mages themselves has been using him to divine the future, or the present, no one really knows. But because of how benign his powers were in contrast to what they had faced, the people took pity on him and let him live. He still lives in the palace, now five hundred turns later, but people say there was another that survived the night."

He turns to the fire, and the glow melts over him and makes the green dyed linen tunic and pants he wears shadow in long lines. His wings twist at odd angles, throwing darkness over me and the pillows I find comfort in. "It was the First Mage that escaped, the greatest of all. They say he fled the city as a coward, running in fear for his life."

I can't _not_ speak anymore. "But you don't believe he ran scared."

"No." He licks his lips, "there is however a little more to the story and this is the most important part of all."

"Several hundred turns ago, there was a Thursian Winlean that visited the capital. She was like us, with dark skin, and inky colored hair. She was like you, young, perhaps a year older or two. She had gone on family business, because there weren't festivals in Winland like there are now even though it was a time of peace. No one went to Winland in celebration, with Vilia the Vile sitting on the throne, there was no where more dangerous than the capital city and her all seeing eyes."

Ahmiran turns, somber. "On that fateful night she had walked among the gray and white towers, the marble streets, and watched the palace glow from a distance. And just as she was about to take her leave, she met her mate and instantly knew they were to be. It was as if the Goddess herself had picked them for each other, just as she does for the royal family. And they fell in love."

His hands move as if he is gathering the air. "It was beautiful - to know in a moment what love is and be filled like that. She was a true Thursian Winlean, embodying the ideals of our people, to love and fight for what is ours, and so with that passion she must have loved him so."

"Yes." I whisper, unable to really speak thinking about what that must be like.

"However, something happened." He looks away as if he's remembering something from long ago. "No one knows if the magic was within her the whole time, or if it was manifested from the love of her mate, but after a night in his arms, it came like the first snap of winter."

He slaps his leg and I jump. "Just like that, a jolt of pure energy ripped from her, and destroyed the inn she was at with her new mate. It ripped the wood from the stone, shattering the building and all within it. Well, not all, her mate lived - immune to the power of her magic, somehow."

Ahmiran grows quiet, and I wait until I can't anymore. "And?"

"And, of course Vilia would have none of this, so she had her killed. Her and her young love."

I almost don't want to ask. "How did she kill them?"

"By throwing them from the city to their deaths below."

"But couldn't they fly-"

"She had broken their wings, so that they could flail and scream their way down to the world below."

It churns my stomach. "That is a terrifying way to die."

"All ways of dying are terrifying."

I don't want to think about that. "She killed them because she was afraid the girl was a new mage and would overthrow her, didn't she?"

Ahmiran shrugs. "It makes sense, she was evil to the very core and well aware that a rebellion was brewing. It wasn't even a year after that when the Fabray family lead the revolt that brought them to power. Maybe it was that event that incited it all, I don't know, but either way the girl was dead."

"Ever since I heard the story from an old soldier some years ago, I can't get over the fact that I believe the magic was born in her as a gift from the Goddess to protect us. That the First Mage still lives and will one day come back for the kingdom."

My flesh chills and I'm strangling the blanket again as I watch the last of the embers sputter a flame, pop, and die. The whole idea of it, of this darkness I never knew about, makes everything else seem so trivial. It also makes the concern over Ahmiran leaving to the Northern battlement that much more stark. I find it hard to even breathe and I exaggerate a large breath, just to ensure I can.

It summons Ahmiran's gaze to me, the whites of his eyes and the cream of his wings the only part of him I can see. "I fear it."

I frown. "Surely that can't be true. He must be dead by now."

"He could still be alive, he would only be a little older than the Inquisitor. And we both know that he still walks the halls of the palace." Ahmiran snorts, "he probably runs the place and we live in the world we fear will come again even now."

"No, the Fabray family still rules, and if _any_ of this were true they would have done something by now. They are good, they wouldn't want the people to suffer if there was a chance the First Mage would come back."

Ahmiran laughs softly, "what would they have done? Gone out after a mage with the army? You know I love the Fabray family and I will follow them to any battle, but to face a mage is to face your death. Everyone knows it."

"But they have the Inquisitor and surely he could help."

Ahmiran nods. "True, though I wonder what he would do." Ahmiran laughs and I frown at his outburst. "He could fortune tell them to death I suppose."

And even though I laugh, I wonder why anyone would chain up a young boy who could do no more than tell fortunes. It doesn't make sense, not to me.

Ahmiran joins me on the pillows again, dropping down and whisking over me with his feathers. I swat him away, hit what I think is his knee dangerously close to my face. "You almost hit me."

"Well, stop taking up so much space."

I roll my eyes in the dark, "What a chivalrous soldier you are turning out to be."

I don't know why I say it, because as soon as the words leave my mouth I know they will break the brittle moment between us. And they do, with the clearing of my older brother's throat. "You should go to sleep. I should as well, a few hours will do me good for the long flight to the border of the Shadowlands."

"Will you wake me before you leave?"

He doesn't answer straight away, "yes."

"Don't you lie to me, promise it."

"I promise." And he moves his fingers over his chest, crossing his heart.

I stay up the entire night to make sure he can't break his word and the dark familiar shadows of my room become something else entirely as my imagination recounts his story over and over.

It's still dark when I hear the jangle of his armor, and I roll over to watch him fill the doorway. His oil lamp paints over the leather punctuated ringmail armor he wears and I don't look at him, not really. It hurts too much that he is leaving me behind.

"Can I walk with you to the fields?"

And while I'm certain there are many winlean that would shudder at the idea of having their sister accompany them, Ahmiran doesn't seem to mind it. He never did, which is why I love him so. "Of course."

It is the shortest walk of my life from my family home in the center of town to the outskirting fields. Things always come quickly when I fear them. I look back over the dark sloping land as it races toward the black outline of my city Emberlin at the shore. Ahmiran doesn't say a word, his eyes resting on the same image mine are. My brother beside me, we wait for dawn to come over the city and enjoy the quiet of the field together one last time.

"We will do this again when I return."

I couldn't imagine a life where we didn't. All the little rituals mean so much to me. "Of course."

"It's coming soon." He whispers beside me, excitement edging his voice.

"I know." I tighten my hands in my dress, filling them with anything to alleviate the pressure I feel in my chest.

He shifts closer, his hand touching my wing as he leans in expectantly. He always announces it, the moment of daybreak. His face is pressed to mine when the words come, and I commit the moment to memory.

"Now."

Then, almost like he made it so, the sun sparks past the crumbling watchtowers at the ocean's edge, turning the black waters gold. It burns my eyes as ribbons of color suck away gray shadows and replace them with vibrant orange. The light shoots through the arches and pillars of Emberlin, ricocheting off the closest towers, massive structures of sandstone and limestone that stand in testament to my people's history.

The shadows are chased from the field and it glows emerald and copper around Ahmiran as I turn to his smile.

"I'll miss you."

A smile that is gone so quickly at my words.

"I'll miss you too."

I run my fingers over the soft burs of barley that encircle us. I try to grasp at them, but the gentle ocean breeze pulls them away as I focus on my brother's face.

"When will you be back?"

His eyes are set on the horizon. "I don't know, five or six turns."

"I wish I was going." I glance back at the city, wishing that I would have brought my sword. It is all I have that is rightfully mine. "I have a better technique than you."

He laughs and I smile, even as I put a hand to my chest to press against the pain there.

"It's true. You are the best, but it is my duty as the oldest. Your duty is to be here, to be the scholar." He grows quiet as he stares at me, as his eyes trace. They memorize, perhaps for a story he can tell others while he is gone. When they finally look away, I feel emptier with their leaving.

"I just had a terribly painful thought."

"What?"

He sobers. "The next time I see you, you'll be a grown woman, most likely with a family of your own."

I shake my head. "I will wait. I won't go through a binding ceremony without you there."

"You mustn't do that." He smiles to balm his words. "What have our people always spoken of? Embracing love and fighting for it. It is our way, it is why our city stands, why our race still lives."

It doesn't make it any easier to bear. "I know."

"Come here." He spreads his arms and I hug him tightly. I close my eyes, promising myself I won't cry, that I will be brave like I'm supposed to be. He whispers a prayer into my hair and when my throat twists I give up the fight and cry. I hide my face in his shoulder and weep.

"I will have more stories to tell you when I return. And I will share all of them with you my little sister."

I nod, choked almost silent by my misery. "Tell me just one more, please."

He laughs and then does so. It is about after the bloodiest battle in our kingdom's history, when the mages had been overthrown and the snowy ground near the capital was melted in red rivers; how the following warm season brought a blanket of flowers. Flowers that blossom to this day through the bones and bodies that have turned to dust.

I think it is a beautiful story and it doesn't really matter if it is true or not because in my mind, and in places like this field with the silence between us, the truth is what I believe it to be.

The truth is what Ahmiran says it is as well, and those beautiful truths are the only world I need.

However as with all things, it ends too soon.

"I must go." He kisses my head again, trailing fingers through my hair. "Help father with Khalil."

"I will, I promise." I mime the motion over my chest. He does the same.

With a final smile he pushes off and leaves me in a swirl of grain. I watch him disappear, until his figure is blurred into the blue of the sky. There is a desperate part of me that imagines chasing him, following him to the Shadowlands. I think about it, of begging for him not to send me home; I imagine every detail until my tears fall again. It is a reality I will never have, because I love him and would never steal the pride he is earning through fulfilling his duty.

I make my way back to the city, walking instead of flying, fanning my hands through the barley in thought. It gives the world enough time to awaken, because this time I walk onto the smooth stone path that guides me toward the city center, the bubble of children's laughter is in the air. It is a high pitched excitement that punctures the air and rises above the men and women laughing at the looms, weaving silken clothing from shimmering thread. I regard them to the left as I pass.

I turn the other direction and stare blankly at the armory. It's massive frame shadows the ground I move over. The large proud warriors, with black branding on their faces, talk heatedly and then salute as I pass. I return the gesture to them, wave to others that walk beside me as I enter the bustling square.

I am a member of the first families, from the old clans.

As such, we send our first born to the wall in armor, our second to the libraries and the third to the trade towns. It is the tradition, the duty I have to all Thursian. The respect I'm afforded doesn't seem a fair trade for the loss of my second father two winter's ago in a diplomatic meeting gone awry. Nor does it seem worth the leaving of my brother. It's a slight to my bloodline in thinking it, but I think it all the same.

"Rachel!"

I turn to my name, at the swarm of excited laughs that follow and then strangle my legs from every angle. I recognize a few faces, local children who I have taught Tel'mat, the art of Thursian swordplay. I was always more adept with a blade, Ahmiran is the scholar.

I feel misplaced again as I hold my balance watching some children swordfight as others drag long lines in the sand with their wooden blades. My emotions roll as I remember being one of them.

"Can you teach us something today?"

Another voice. "Yes! Right now!"

One of the smallest, his wings not even grown in yet, insists on trying to climb my hip. I good naturedly ignore the tugging until he hooks his dirty boot into the hem of my gown for leverage and then I'm forced to pick him up to stall his motions.

I eye him and he withers. I can't be angry, not when he buries his face into my neck with a hug of apology. It rings with familiarity, of the way my brother held me, of the joys I had in being with him.

"I'm sorry. Show us, please."

My voice threatens to break under my memories. "I can't. I have to write for the palace."

"Are you writing to the Queen?"

"Do you know her?"

I shake my head as I walk slowly, carrying the small boy in my arms as the others follow. "No, just copying a book for the library in Winland."

"What is the book about?" A small girl tugs on my hand, holding it tightly.

I spin her slowly as we pass the large central fountain and I lose a few children to play in the water. "The tactics of war."

"Someday the peace will end and we must be ready." One of the older children says quickly and it makes me remember Ahmiran and my talk the night before. "You need to train us more and write less."

I frown at him even as the girl beside me jerks my hand to draw my attention back. "What are tactics?"

"How to move yourself or an army in combat."

"Writing is stupid!" One of the childrens says, and I look around for the owner of the voice, but I can't tell who it was.

"No, it isn't." I correct to anyone listening to me. I feel like a part of me is saying it for myself as well.

"Can you show us something while you walk?" The small hand holding mine comes loose and a child hands me their practice blade.

The head on my shoulder perks up and when I meet excited dark eyes, I can't help but give in. "Okay."

I point the bladed edge away from me. "Here is the best skill you could ever know. Use the pointed end to stick people." I tease, jabbing once at the empty air before me. A few groans rise up, but more laugh instead.

"Tell us really."

I stare down at the weapon in my hand, thinking. I twist it in my hand.

"It's all in the angle of the blade." I hold the weapon before me on a diagonal. "The angle can never be smaller than your shoulders and wings. Otherwise, when you parry a sword strike, you will lose a bit of something." I use the weapon to point at a passing warrior, his shoulder scared on a flat edge. "Like that, he lost all the skin there because his weapon wasn't far enough out."

"Have you ever fought?"

"Yes."

"You don't have scars, do you?"

"Why do you have no scars?"

I feel a hand on my forearm, looking for them. "Everyone has them, why not you?"

We stop outside the library and I release the child in my embrace. "I'm just lucky I suppose."

"It's because she is very good and far too modest," it is the Scribe Master that says it, and he gives me a reprimanding look, "Rachel is also too good to be here on time."

"I'm sorry. I was saying goodbye to Ahmiran."

He nods curtly even his eyes soften. "Fine, but did you have to bring the rabble?" He gestures wildly, a smile forming on his lips. "Go on! Off with all of you before I put you all to work!"

The children scream good-naturedly and take off in some semblance of escape. It leaves me laughing despite myself.

"It is good to see the children having fun." He says with a tone I can't place.

I regard them as they dive back into their play. "It is."

"You should be playing too." He inclines his head toward me. "You are still too young to have your head turned down under such work."

I shade my eyes to look at him, easing back against the wall. "I'm twelve turns now and besides it is my duty to learn this trade. Today, tomorrow; it doesn't matter."

"You appear to already have a duty, and a proficiency in it." He points to the wooden weapon I still hold in my hand. "It also appears to me you have already done your duty to our people, despite the tradition."

I rest the weapon against the stone facade of the library, so it's owner can retrieve it.

"No, not _my_ duty," I ramp up the words I feel coming even as my eyes focus on the small sword, "but the skill will always be there. After all, they are both weapons, in a way. For me knowledge will be sharper than the sword."

"Rachel, I must say, you speak the words just like your ancestors, the Berry who were sages of old. You do your bloodline proud despite your misgivings."

I swallow brokenly when the image of Ahmiran leaving blazes before my eyes. "My brother does my blood proud, I just copy text."

"Rachel, I have no doubt you will do far more than copy text. Praise be upon the Goddess and the Fabray family, there will be no war on our lands while they sit on the throne. Your brother will therefore be safe and you will be worth more as a scholar than a swordsworn anyway." He beckons me out of the sun as he presses the door open. "Come, there is work to be done and this talk does nothing but sour your mood further. The books will not write themselves, so we should begin."

Though it would be wonderful if they did, he is right, and I follow him and my duties inside.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Quinn 1412**

The grand balcony of the palace overlooks the whole of Winland. In the darkness, the marble and granite blend in with the sky, except where the torchlight sparkles and warms it. It is a familiar view of the theatre, coliseum and statues, but my favorite is the golden temple. Set at the edge of the city center, it lightens the sky with it's amber glow. It feels as big as the palace, and from the oculus in it's dome, a figure of the Goddess reaches upward. I stare at it, at her arms outstretched toward the sky.

My stomach flutters where I stand because tonight my mate will be picked in the shadow of her arms, or at least I hope so.

I think I hope so. Everything is very confusing now that it is a moment away from me.

"You look ridiculous." Gregory says beside me. "When you wear that long silver gown, you look like a child in their parent's clothing." I ignore him and the crushing uncertainty it makes me feel. I turn my head up at the clear night sky, at the flecks of light in the darkness. It is said that the glowing pinpoints are the eyes of those that have come before us. I refuse to acknowledge his mean words when the Kings and Queens of the past can see me.

"Ignore me all you would like. It doesn't make it not true." He snorts a laugh that dies in his throat after a moment. When he falls silent I forget the stars and look out over the city again. This time the view is blocked by my mother, the Queen.

She is the most beautiful Winlean in the whole kingdom, everyone says it so it must be true. My mother is tall, with long blonde hair and eyes the color of a midday sky. They say she is a temperate ruler, who has an able hand and unlike other people she speaks softly because the kingdom stops talking when she opens her mouth.

No one does that for me, but hopefully someday they will.

"My son." Mother beckons Gregory toward her and he gets lost in the bolts of purple silk that fall around him from her dress when she hugs him. Her silver crown glitters as she presses her face to his hair. I take a calmed breath because her good is better than Gregory's evil and as long as she and father are here, Gregory will be good.

I think back to the Inquisitor's words as my skin chills.

She releases him with long fingers smoothing his hair. "Join your father at the temple, my love, I will fly with your sister."

Gregory frowns at me when he looks back, but doesn't speak. He just leaves in a whistle of wind.

When mother turns to me I step into her arms and hide in them. Eyes closed, I'm safe and I hold tight. "It's time, Quinn."

I don't know why her words make my throat get tight. It feels like I can't breathe and my eyes water. What if I don't have a mate picked for me? What if I'm just like Gregory and fail?

I don't want my mother to be angry at me.

"What if the Goddess doesn't pick for me?" I ask with my face pressed to her shoulder so she can't see my eyes tear.

A queen doesn't cry.

She is silent for a long time, and I hear the far off cheer at the temple. What if the people see me fail? I could never be Queen even if the Goddess _has _picked me, because the shame will be too much to bare.

I'm embarrassed when my mother pulls my head back and catches my tears on her thumb. Her eyes are shiny as they hold mine. She looks sad, just like me. I've never seen her have this face.

"She _will_ pick for you. You will be Queen when I'm gone and tonight will be the final proof of that."

"Why does a mate matter?"

She smiles thinly. "You cannot be coronated unless you have a mate. Our family must continue."

I don't understand why having someone to rule beside me and share my bed is so important. Certainly it isn't worth this public shaming. "It shouldn't matter, we shouldn't have to do this." I hurry my words because I can hear the horns blowing in the distance. They do it every year before Gregory walks into the temple. He must be walking in now.

My mother can tell where my appeal comes from. "Gregory will have a mate when the Goddess sees fit. You will tonight, I know it."

It's not fair to him. I thought the Goddess was fair. I don't want him to hate me more.

"Why me then?" I cry out in desperation, my final pleading for understanding. "Why me then and not him! He already hates me!"

The Queen's arms cover me and hide me again. Her voice is soft. "Because you are dutiful and good, Quinn. You make me proud and I know the Goddess will give you a loving and kind mate to live the rest of your days with."

It makes me afraid for other reasons, ones I'm not sure I want to speak. "What if I _do _have a mate picked? What do I do then? What if I don't love them?" I hold back on the other feelings I feel bubble up even though they make my stomach churn.

When she looks at me and opens her mouth to answer, I'm shocked when a chorus of yells, low and frightening come from the temple. They sound like they are mad and they rumble with the same disappointment the King has when his favorite fighter loses during the warm season's tournaments.

My brother has failed. He has been skipped, again. Three. It makes my tears start again.

"They are waiting for us." My mother leads me to the edge of the balcony. I look up at her, at the warmth of her smile as she looks down at me, before we both fall into the air and fly away.

It's a short distance to the temple when I don't want to go. We make it there so quickly I haven't been able to dry my tears. They keep coming. Once landed, it isn't easier. It's more frightening than I ever thought it could be. There are so many people, they stand at the base of the stairs to the temple and perch above me on roof tops. More people than I have ever seen. They are dark shadows that writhe around me and glorify in my very public humiliation.

I want to fly home and hide.

I hold my breath and stop the tears. I silently promise myself I'll never cry again. This is my duty and a Queen cannot cry over her duty.

Father gives me a hug and tweaks my ear. It makes me think about my mother's words regarding the rest of my life. I pull back and my King nudges me toward the open doorway. "Don't be afraid, love," he whispers just low enough for me to hear before the horns blast so loud I can't hear anything anymore.

Will my mate tweak my ear? Will my father still once I have a mate? I roll my eyes up at the sky above me to stall the gathering moisture on my lashes.

I pass into the doorway, into the big circular room. It's not the same room where I have gone to pray though, its darker. The torches aren't lit like they normally are, and if I go much farther I won't be able to see anymore. I feel something under my foot and I stop to reach down. It is a piece of wood, a little square. I turn it over and hold it in the light pouring through the doorway behind me. I make out a name written on it.

William Morade. I know of him. He is the son of the man that tears silver from the mountains. I learned about his father last week from the Inquisitor.

There are other wooden pieces though, many more before me. They tumble over each other in shimmering piles from wall to wall. So many of them I can't count. I look down at the one in my hand. Is this the chip I'm supposed to have picked? How could Gregory not bend down and pick up one?

I look back through the open archway and I can see my family standing at the bottom of the stairs. I think I should go back outside, but when I look up at the statue of the Goddess I don't know why, but I stop.

She rises above me, and I take another step into the piles of wood. They tickle under my feet. My heart is beating hard, harder than it has ever in my life. I want to make my family happy, but I don't want my brother to hate me more. It makes everything very jumbled because I will make someone angry at me no matter what.

It makes me feel alone.

My hands tighten and that is when I realize I still have the wooden tile in my hand. I forgot about it. I swallow. What if I wasn't supposed to touch it?

"I'm sorry Goddess, is this the right one to pick?"

And suddenly a light erupts from within the statue before me and everything goes white. It is so bright I can't see and a terrifying roar circles me. I cover my face and my ear, but I can still hear screams punctuate through the deafening low bellow. It robs me of my spine and I scream in panic, because it's hot, hotter than the sun at midday. I know I should run, that the Inquisitor tells me I have a fighter's instinct somewhere inside me, but I can't.

When the sound goes away and behind my eyelids I don't see red anymore, I know the light is gone. I peek an eye open, and instead of darkness there are four lit torches and dirt everywhere on the floor. I stumble backward at the ruin around me and collapse to the marble, throwing blackness into the air. I stare at it, at the swirls and glitters in the light.

I don't understand what is happening until my mother pulls me against her and holds me tightly. That is when I look down at my clenched hand and open it. Where the wooden tile was, nothing but ash remains. It falls from my palm and I touch the skin absently, because I'm not burned.

I look up right as father leans down and picks up something; I feel my mother's hand tighten on my arm, much the same way my throat tightens until I can't speak.

"The Goddess has spoken!"

She speaks for me as my whole life unfolds on an insignificant chip of wood. "The fires have incinerated all except a single name. The mate to the future Queen."

He turns it over in his hand, and it seems so careless when matched with how important it is to me.

"Rachel Berry."

The family Berry. Emberlin. The memory of my lessons screams into my mind and I think I feel my mouth fall open, but I'm not sure because the yelling and cheers of everyone makes me numb. I can't hear anything, can't feel anything. I just tremble in the wake of their happiness as my mother wraps loving arms around me.

I know I'm not happy though because across the room I can see Gregory smiling. He is standing in the only shadow in the room, and it makes him look more frightening than any future could hold for me. It isn't a happy smile he wears because he hates me for not failing. He wears his hating smile so well and often I don't think he has another, but never has he turned it on me. It is reserved for when I've spied him killing little birds and throwing them from the walls.

When he smiles at me like that, I know we shouldn't play anymore, just as the Inquisitor said.

* * *

Thank you for your support. I hope you are liking this :)


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: No need to stress, L&L was my **only** depressing story. Everything else is tense, but not depressing. So, sit back, read, review and enjoy. I'll make you bite your nails, fall in love, get turned on and cry (hopefully not at the same time, but who knows) - but I'm not gonna torment you like I've done before.

You're safe moving forward, you have my word. :)

So, again - enjoy and let me know if you are liking this part. Your feedback inspires me. Talk soon!

* * *

**Chapter 4**

**Rachel 1412**

The sunlight cuts in long rays over the stones beside me. I stare at the light, glinting off all manner of twisted glass bottles. Many are empty, but the ones that are not, shimmer. Every day I try to remember what the Scribe Master said they were without asking. They remind me of potions I saw hanging from the belt of a traveling vendor from the capital Winland.

I still marvel at them, though it's been months since Ahmiran left to take up his place at the wall and I took up a place at this confounded desk.

"Are you daydreaming again?"

I turn back to my work, focusing on the letters and words that make up the book I'm copying. "No, just resting my eyes as you instructed I should."

He clicks his tongue at me, "tricky little thing."

I smile at him. "No, I just take your advice to heart, since it comes with such wisdom."

He snorts, "and a panderer too."

I copy more lines of text, until the words don't really look like language any more. They become images, half circles and lines that are separate of one another. They are just pretty drawn shapes in a vast sea of other floating objects.

I press my hand to the loose pages as a salty sea breeze pours through the open window and whisks through my hair. Though it is most certainly work, here in the quiet of the library, where only the scratch of quills on paper is constant, it is beginning to feel like home.

I stare at the ink on my fingers and rub the splatters away as much as I can.

"Rachel!"

When I hear my name yelled by my youngest brother Khalil, I startle at my desk. The door bangs open a moment later, and the wind it unleashes takes a chaotic hand to my neat pile of pages. I grab for them, distracted by my brother and the pallor in his face.

"By the Goddess, Khalil, look at the mess you have made! Your sister and I - wait, what is it?" The Scribe Master interrupts himself, stepping from his place at his own desk.

Even from this far away, across the room, I can see the shadows clouding my brother's normally bright blue eyes. "What's wrong?" I ask, bringing his gaze back to me for a moment until they go back to the scribe, debating.

"You need to come home. That's all father said I could say."

Kahlil says it in a seriousness that is foreign on his lips. It has my heart pounding even before the provocation is known. I follow after him, and turning at the door I hold it closed to stop the currents of air. "I'm sorry, I will be back to pick everything up."

He waves me off. "Go on, hurry, it's unlike him to be that serious. Come get me if you need anything."

"Thank you." I close the door quickly and when I spot my brother's anxious expression I go to ask him what's wrong, but he take off, spraying me in pebbles. I push off as well, streaking after him.

"What's wrong?" I call as I chase him through the blustering currents. He dips ahead of me and the drag pulls me after him as we cut around the southern tower and over the bay before angling back toward Emberlin.

He doesn't say anything until he looks back at me. "Soldiers from Winland came and an old man has a letter for you."

"A letter about what?"

He frowns. "I don't know. He will only let you open it."

I reach out to tug on his foot and he looks back at me with concern. It makes a lump form in my throat. "What do you mean, me?"

"I don't know."

"Stop playing, this isn't funny anymore." Even as I say it, it sounds hollow.

"I'm not playing."

"Then why are Midlandians from Winland here to give me a letter?"

We move past the ocean breakwall that lets into the city and avoid the northern towers as we circle toward the center of town. As I spot the area where my family's home is, I can see purple and silver forms launch into the sky.

They glint in the lazy afternoon sun like shards of glass and by color alone I recognize they are with the royal guard. Purple is the color of the House of Fabray, and no other. I don't know why I didn't believe Kahlil.

I let go a ragged breath, because there is something about seeing the royal guard this far north in the kingdom that unsettles me. They don't come up here, and though we follow the crown, there is a division between the Midlandians and my people.

When the guards move into a flanking position around us, and Khalil's whole body tightens, I move as close as I can to him so I can protect us. The guards stare at me piercingly, and I swallow willing my face to be calm despite how many bodies encircle us. I stare straight ahead, watchful as their eyes burning into me from every angle.

I wonder if perhaps someone found out the story Ahmiran told me and now I'm going to the dungeons for my speculations. I didn't breathe a word of it to anyone, so I don't know how they would know. Unless, he told someone. I wet my lips of the dryness my hurried breaths create. We are close enough now, that I can see the large bronze orb that marks the center of my family's garden. There are more guards gathered there waiting. I can see them milling around, and a large group of my own people, starting to circle in concern.

I chew my words over and over before finally the pressure is too much to take. "What's this about?" I ask softly.

I catch the eyes of the grizzled man beside me and we hold gazes silently. When I finally realize I spoke in my native language and he can't understand, I try again in Midlandian. As only an apprentice scribe I'm not fluent and I hope I say it right.

He clears his throat and answers in a tongue as unfamiliar to me as the words I just spoke. "My lady, it's best you read the letter."

I don't miss how my brother's eyes widen when he calls me a lady. That is only said to royalty and while my family is from old noble blood long ago, we are nothing important now. Certainly not enough worth to the Midlandians for him to use that title. "I am not a lady." It's rumored that you go to a chopping block for pretending as such.

I rub my hand over my throat.

"Understood, my lady."

He does it again and I frown as deeply as Kahlil.

When we land, the gathering of my people made of warriors mostly, shout angrily over the wall of guards. "Step away from the House Berry! What do you want with the Berry children?"

"Get back! You have no right to question us!"

I understand those words and I scowl darkly, because if anyone has no rights here it is them.

"Tell us now! Royal guard or not, you have no right to come here and threaten our families!" They push toward us.

"Get back!" One of the guards knocks away a young warrior I've trained with. He wheels backward wings spread to help him balance, yet he changes direction almost instantly as my people push toward the guards in aggression.

I watch swords come free of their scabbards on both sides, and before I even realize it, I'm screaming.

"No!"

It's the same in both languages, and though I hear my voice, I can't believe I've actually spoken until the royal guard has turned to me. I don't understand why they listen to me, and one glance from my brother tells me he doesn't understand why they are listening to me either. However it happens, they sheath their weapons, and wait.

I don't know what they are waiting for.

The silence is interrupted by a clearing of a throat behind me and I turn to it.

The figure that takes up the doorway to my family home is unlike any I have ever seen before. His wings are as dark as my hair and his frame is covered from head to toe in dark gray cloth. I don't even have to see his face; I just feel the energy from him and know exactly who it is.

The Inquisitor, the only sanctioned mage in the kingdom.

His presence draws a line of ice up my spine.

"You must be Lady Rachel Berry then."

I can't speak.

"Aren't you?" His pointed gaze punctures through me, it prompts words out of my mouth.

"I'm Rachel Berry only."

When he turns to the crowd gathered, he carves his words in perfect Thursian, "People of Emberlin, we have private business to discuss with the Berry family. No harm will come to them, so go back to your business. I will send away the guard, as they seem to be on edge."

And then he speaks in Midlandian without a breath of hesitation. I don't understand what he says, but it is most definitely an order. I know that tone well regardless of language. Instantly and with a wall of deafening sound and a storm of wind, the guards climb into the sky under his directive. Khalil grabs my hand, holding it tightly and we don't stop watching them until they are nothing more than a gray cloud in the sky.

"Lady Rachel?"

The deep voice of the Inquisitor calls to me and I turn to him.

"Come."

Khalil tightens his fingers in mine even more. "Don't go."

I don't want to, but the way the mage looks at me tells me I have no choice.

When the Inquisitor leaves the door it feels less threatening, but not by much. I can see the entry room of the house with the gathering pool, empty of rainwater. The sun is coming through the oculus in the roofing and lights the area enough that I can see no one is there.

"No, don't go." Khalil tugs on my hand, but I give him a look and he lets me free.

I take the steps inside slowly, and edge around the door with a quick look. Once inside, I stand before the gathering pool and the harsh stream of daylight coming down on the white limestone. "Father?"

"Rachel!" He comes at me from the adjoining room to encircle me in his arms protectively. When I finally pull back the Inquisitor is standing behind him. He pulls his hood off his face. He is old and whitened in a way that only magic can do to a person; it makes him look every bit like the five hundred turns Ahmiran told me in his story.

I find the words to speak after a moment.

"You're the Inquisitor, aren't you?" I think my words suck the air out of the room. They certainly suck the sound out of it as even my father stops breathing. I don't know whether it scares me or excites me, or both. I think both, though I can't be certain of what I'm thinking in any regard as his cold steel colored gaze holds me captive.

"Yes. I am." He answers me in Thursian. He is staring at me in a way I don't believe anyone has ever stared at me before, "and you again are the Lady Rachel. Come closer so I can look at you." He gestures for me and I move out of my father's arms to stand before him. He eyes me down the hard edge of his nose before pulling free a letter. "This is from the House Fabray, from the Queen. It is for you."

The Queen? I hesitate in taking it and he measures me intensely. "Is there something wrong?"

I meet very cool eyes above me and glance back to the paper. "The moment I take this it will change everything, won't it?"

"Yes, it will."

"What if I don't want to read it?"

"You have no choice, what is done is done. This impacts your family, your people, even the kingdom as much as you." The old mage before me states coldly.

I look back at them, at my father and the deep frown on his face. At Khalil who must have snuck in behind me and has now taken up a place beside my father. Though I love them, it is the image of Ahmiran on a wall far away that twists my heart enough, my hand reaches toward the letter.

"I want you to know something then in exchange," I state as I take the paper from his gnarled hands. For being so light and small, I feel my heart sink with the weight and importance of it.

"What is that?" The Inquisitor asks.

"I'm only doing this because I love them." I don't know why I think it is important he know that, but it is to me.

"That is often how life is, my lady. We do the hardest things for the ones we love the most."

I glance at him as I pull free the ribbon that circles the scroll in my hands. My gaze drops to the familiar flowing words that mark issuances from the palace. It's written in Thursian, and I'm grateful for it.

* * *

_Lady Rachel,_

_It comes with great pleasure to inform you that the Goddess has marked you Her Chosen and the mate to my daughter, Quinn Fabray. You are invited to the palace as soon as you are able. It would be ideal to have you visit every middle season until at a future time you decide to make the palace your home. Please inform the Inquisitor of your intention and we will prepare for your arrival._

_Queen Rhainn Fabray_

* * *

"You have been selected as the Chosen, Rachel." The Inquisitor says it and gives sound to the words on the page I cannot say.

I look at him without seeing him. It can't be real. It just can't be.

It is all very hazy and slow motion as he smiles at me and tells me my future. "It was nearly a month ago that the princess walked into the temple and waited to have her mate divined for her. She stood among piles of wooden tiles, each with the name of a Winlean of age to be her mate. And it was you, yours was the name that didn't burn in the great fire that swept the temple."

I feel the page slide from my hand, but I think my father takes it. I stare blindly at the cloth in my hand as he again unrolls the scroll it held closed. As I stare at the purple silk I wonder whose hands tied it.

Whose hands sealed my fate?

"You have been chosen?"

My father says the words again, but I can't take my eyes off the ribbon even when Khalil's hands squeeze my arm painfully.

"The Queen requests you visit?" His eyes are darting the page in the periphery of my vision, "to meet the Princess?" He lowers the page with a rustle, "Rachel is mated to the Princess?"

"Yes, and as the Goddess commands, we follow."

"How is such an honor possible?"

The mage's face softens. "Because the Goddess said so."

I instantly have a pain in my head despite the softness of the words around me and I close my eyes against it. The room spins and closes in on me as it pinches the air from my lungs. It is the Inquisitor who steadies me. He has a grip stronger than hands like his should allow.

"Forgive the touch lady, but you looked to be faint."

I stare at his twisted grip on my arm, "It's okay."

"Lady, if I may, I need to speak with you in private."

"My lord Inquisitor, anything you must say to my daughter can be said here. Surely you can understand how blessed this is and yet so very difficult at the same time." His voice is very hopeful and I feel a small modicum of comfort when he steps in beside me, corralling my shoulders and wings enmass.

The mage looks to me and my throat goes dry. "Lady, I must insist we speak alone."

I turn to my father, putting a hand in his arm. "With your permission, may I speak with him?"

He frowns, "is that what you want?"

I tell him yes, even though I'm not entirely sure.

I give Khalil a squeeze of my hand before pulling free. I follow the Inquisitor without seeing anything, not really. I don't even know where we go in my father's home, until I recognize the state room where he entertains and meets with the council from the Weave and the small outlying cities. It's darker in here, and it eases the pain behind my eyes.

"Lady, my apologies. I know this must be a lot to take in, are you well?"

When he asks, it makes it that much worse, but the concern is welcome even if seemingly out of place coming from him. "My lord Inquisitor, I'm fine."

"I am not a lord to you, not anymore, remember it. Your station has just elevated quite a bit and the sooner you learn that the easier it will be for you." His voice is nice, but his words punishing.

"I'm sorry."

"You owe me no apology, lady." He smiles, calling me closer, his temperament shifting dizzyingly. "As you seem to know who I am, I'm sure you imagine why I'm here."

I shake my head. I can't imagine anything.

"I'm here to ensure you are all that royal family hopes you are before you are publically declared as The Chosen. From what I have seen already, I'm confident."

"What do you mean?"

"You need to learn something very quickly. You will be a Queen someday. However, you will also be the mate to the princess and that is the more urgent matter at hand in the Queen's mind. It is easy enough to learn how to be a good ruler, it's another entirely to teach the latter." He pulls up his sleeve and I glance from his translucent skin, to his face, and back again. "I was sent by the Queen to ensure you aren't a mistake for her daughter."

I can't help but read threat in his words and the way he is cuffing his sleeve has my heart racing. I have never been at such a loss for understanding speech and I focus hard to try and understand his words. "If I was picked by the Goddess how can I be a mistake?"

"Very true words, but still, to put minds at ease I have come."

The massive meeting table seems to be the only steady thing in the room and I lean back against it to keep myself upright. "What are you asking of me exactly?" I blink to sooth my eyes as the room seems to grow brighter.

"I am asking your permission to read you, my lady, because I can divine all that is needed much more quickly than you could answer the questions I will have to ask of you."

His eyes flash, or I think they do. It seems like he ages more and his hand reaches out for me slowly. That is when I realize that the light in the room is coming from the space between his fingers.

I edge back until I'm almost sitting on the table and even then I slide further. I jump when my wing knocks aside an empty glass. "What do you want to know of me?" An arc of light passes between the twisted digits glowing a blue whiter than I ever thought was possible.

"I need to know everything about you and inform the Queen."

I swallow, transfixed by the calm in his face. For a strange reason I think of how I'm sure Ahmiran would have given his right wing to see the magic before me.

"What if I don't want you to know everything?"

He frowns. "Is there something you hide lady?"

"No."

I suddenly remember Ahmiran again for a very different reason. The story he told me. I struggle to find my voice as the Inquisitor's hand gets closer and the gray of his robes fills my view. "Wait!"

The crackling white light pauses a breath from me. "Yes?"

"What if I heard a story I shouldn't have?"

He gives me a very thin smile that shifts dizzyingly in the light from his hand. "We will see about that, won't we?"

When he touches my face and then slides his hands under my hair to the base of my skull I feel something tickle under where his fingers are pressing. "It feels strange."

His eyes are oddly nice, warm, as I look up into them. "No harm will come to you, I swear it, but it may be unpleasant for a moment."

"What?"

I go to pull away as the current intensifies and itches, but he holds me steady with a pointed gaze. It isn't so terrible that I can't tolerate it, but I fist my hands in his robes as it worsens.

I must be brave, like the warriors my people always are.

I think that over and over, until the sensation is swallowed by a bolt of ice that literally carves into my mind and robs me of vision. When everything goes black and his touch is so cold it burns, I have every intention of screaming and fighting him, but my breath eases through my throat soundlessly, my body numb to my requests. The Inquisitor's other hand holds me upright when my spine goes weak and I lean limply in his grip as he cleaves into me and takes whatever information he wants.

And then just like that, it's gone.

The cold goes away and leaves me panting for air as his image swims before my gaze. Once I'm able to blink my eyes into focus the first thing I see is a frown on his lips. It vanishes slowly, replaced by an even line.

I try to reach for the pain I felt a moment before, but I can't remember it. It feels like there is a void in my memories. He releases me, putting distance between us.

"You won't remember it."

I open my mouth to refute him, but I fall silent when I realize he is right. I run a hand over my face and then to the back of my neck where for a fleeting moment I worry what I'll feel there. Nothing. I ease a breath.

When he doesn't say anything more and just looks at me, I worry. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, lady."

I want to ask him if I'm in trouble for the story Ahmiran told me, if he is in trouble, but I can't. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out.

"Do not ask the question. There is no good that can come from repeating it."

His look shifts so suddenly, his face so very cold and evil looking I feel a tickle trace up my spine. It's gone a moment later and he looks like the sweetest old winlean in the kingdom, like a grandfather that would give you pastries.

"On another note, there are many skilled swordsworn for you to enjoy practicing with. And large halls where you can sing until your heart's content." He laughs and though it seems genuine, my skin chills all the same. "I'll inform the Queen, and have the princess show you and I'll have the captain of the guard meet with you as well."

"The princess and the captain?"

He puzzles at me. "Yes, since that is what your heart is in. You are quite skilled in Tel'mat, if I may be so bold and singing as well not to mention."

I glance at the closed door behind me. "My duty isn't with swords or music."

"Your duty," he scoffs, "is to be a good mate and a good Queen. Everything else is yours to decide upon." He waves the air between us. "Learn quickly that things will be very different for you now. All that is truly your duty now is to please the Princess in all the ways she sees fit, my lady."

He shouldn't call me a lady after saying a sentence like that, not when it makes me imagine what I see in my mind for a moment.

"And yes, in those ways too."

I make a sound I've never heard before as I try to breathe and speak at the same time and everything is twisted in my throat. The very idea that he knows what I'm thinking; that he knows things as personal as my musings is mortifying.

"How did you-"

"I know everything now and I can feel an inkling of your thoughts, I suppose is a good way to put it."

"Please don't tell anyone." I look back over my shoulder. "Don't tell my father."

He laughs heartily, and I don't think it is funny at all. "This far from the Ivory Seat, things are different, backward. There is much less privacy and silly diatribe about things as normal as mating in the capital."

I feel my face get hot.

"And lady, there is no room for mortification, not for a future Queen."

He says those words and I swallow my embarrassment when confronted with that. I feel the blush drain from my cheeks and leave me cold. We stand in silence, staring at one another until I can find my voice again.

"Did you find everything you need?"

"Yes."

I want to know, but I don't know how to ask. "Can you tell me what you wanted?"

"I needed to know what kind of queen you will be and what kind of mate through your morality and your disposition. There are other ancillary things too, such as your secrets and your betrayals. They tell more about a person than words ever will. It's also important to note how prone you are to illness because we cannot have a weak ruler sitting the throne. Also, if you have taken a mate before-"

"I haven't."

"By the Goddess, that does seem to be something that puts color in your cheeks." He laughs at me. "I have to look for anything that would inhibit your alliances to form well with the Princess."

He stares at me, looks me over the same way Ahmiran did before her left. "Though with the rarity of your dark hair and your dark skin, I have no fear you will capture her attention."

I don't know if I feel uncomfortable or not at the secrets he took and his subsequent words. I think I am, but because he isn't passing any type of judgement for what he found I'm empty of that emotion. I'm just overcome with curiosity on if I passed.

"Can I still become a queen?"

"Yes. You remind me very much of Queen Rhainn herself. Even more so than Quinn."

Hearing her name, the Princess', makes my stomach flutter. I have a difficult time forming words, "What about the Queen?"

"You feel like her, I can't say it any plainer than that. She was a slight older when I read her, sixteen Springs if I recall; however your heart feels very much like hers, or at least how I remember she was as a young girl. Perhaps you have even more wisdom, such is the burden of the things you've seen. It grows a heart."

His words make my aforementioned heart thunder until I swear he must be able to hear it.

"What about Quinn?" I touch my lips when I say her name, feel them under my fingers.

"What about her?"

"Can you tell me about her?"

"Yes, but I will not. She is yours to discover."

I nod even as a frown.

The old mage smiles at me and then sighs softly. "I told the Queen's mate two things when he looked at me the same way you are now all those turns ago. And I suppose that it didn't hurt, so you have two questions Lady, what do you choose?"

"I don't know what to ask."

"Do you want to know what the young King asked?" He laughs, "to remove the pressure?"

"Yes."

"He asked if she was adventurous and if she was beautiful."

"Oh." And though I think those are silly things to ask, now they are the only thing I can think of. I struggle to pull at anything else and then I smile as an idea pops in my head.

"Will you answer the King's questions?"

"Those are the two you desire?" He looks surprised.

I shake my head, smiling wider. "I only asked one. I still have one more."

He looks mad, like I tricked him and then the Inquisitor laughs and tisks at me even as he grins. "You will be shrewd you clever little thing. Fine, here is your answer." He clears his throat. "I have spent years teaching Quinn everything there is about our home and because of it the Princess is very interested in traveling and visiting the kingdom. She has an adventurous spirit, but it's tempered by her desire to be dutiful to her throne. And dutiful she is, something you share, I suppose."

"You are the teacher for the future rulers, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"Will you be mine?"

"Of course, but moving forward I know to be on my toes around you." The lines in his face deepen with a wide knowing smirk until he sobers. "In regard to her beauty, she is very much like her mother, with her golden spun hair, but she has her father's light hazel eyes. Once she is older I have no doubt that she will have the same build and look as her mother."

"What does the Queen look like?"

"I assume that because the question isn't about Quinn directly, you are not counting it toward your limit of two?"

"Correct."

He laughs. "Have you never seen the Queen? Not in any of the books you've copied?"

I shake my head.

"Well, she is about as tall as your father and I feel that given your heritage, Quinn will most likely come to a stand a half hand taller than you," he narrows his eyes and his fingers snap, a flash of white light shocking the air between us, "no, less. You will be tall for a Thursian Winlean once you are fully grown."

"You can divine that?"

"Yes." Again a shock of light, but this time it persists and trails over his fingers weaving a pattern as his digits move. It seems almost, I don't know the word - intimate. The motions pull the trails together into one another.

"Yes, I'm weaving the images together." He answers without my asking. "Quinn and you will stitch a beautiful tapestry in the throne room. I wish I could live to see the two of you assume the throne."

"You won't?" I don't know why I ask.

"I'm practically as old as the kingdom, an old Winlean deserves rest some day. Now, your final question Lady Rachel."

I lick my lips because I know exactly what I want to ask, but I can't say it. I stare at his hands and whisper it fast before I lose my nerve. "You can see the future can't you?"

He narrows his eyes, "on some things."

"My people believe in a great love, and I must know if the princess and I- will we have a great love someday?"

He is surprised by the question, I can tell with the way his eyes widen at the edge of my gaze. It is gone in a moment, but I know I saw it. "Well, that is up to you."

"She is the Princess, why is it up to me?"

"Because believe it or not, you hold all the power. It may not seem like it, but you do and that is something else you should learn very quickly." He laughs very pleased with how confused I must look. "Are you satisfied having learned what you have?"

"No. I just want to know more. I want to know everything there is to know about the Princess. I'm sad the capital is so far away."

"All the more reason to come as soon as you can." The Inquisitor reaches into his robes and pulls free another letter, this one wound very tightly. "This one is from Quinn to you."

My hands perspire instantly as I take it. "Can I send one back?"

"Of course, my lady. She is your mate after all."

When night falls, I listen to my father praise the Goddess through the space under my door. He and the whole town itself have spun me in dizzying circles, praising me too. Despite the echoes of joy around me, my chest feels heavy.

I told the Inquisitor we would leave as soon as the captain of the guard could come fetch me. I worry about what will come of my home and family now that they have lost Ahmiran and I will be leaving as well. I'm sure everyone is convinced I will see the city, the perfection of the court, and somehow forget that this is my home; that I'll forget my heart and my people will always be here.

And poor Khalil will be here alone.

When I can take no more of my father's celebratory words juxtaposed alongside my own guilt, I move to sit beside my oil lamp on the floor and retrieve the letter the Princess sent from where I had hidden it under a loose stone. I told no one of it, because I didn't want anyone to read her words. They are for me and me alone.

Something should remain that way, since the letter the Inquisitor gave me has been flashed to the whole city thanks to my father.

I twist free the small ribbon holding Quinn's letter closed and roll it open. I hold my breath in hope that it too will be in Thursian like the Queen's, but it isn't. I frown as I scroll over the neat flowing writing and make out whatever I can. But it isn't enough. When I remember my translation book at my desk, I'm in such a rush to get to it I stub my toe painfully against the wood.

I don't feel very royal in that moment, with swear words on the back of my tongue and one hand squeezing my foot as the other flips through the book's pages. I busy myself with the listing of Midlandian words beside the Thursian translation to ease the ache.

I find one and whisper it aloud, "letter."

I scroll further, comparing, "finds."

I forget about the stinging of my toe and carry the book back with me to my spot by the oil lamp. It must take all night, because the glow on the horizon is glimmering outside my window when I'm finally able to read her letter.

* * *

_Rachel,_

_I hope this letter finds you well._

_I look forward to laying eyes on you when you come to Winland. I have heard that Thursian Winlean are very exotic. It interests me._

_I have faith the Goddess has chosen well._

_I will be sure to show you the palace and the city, so you will be knowledgeable of the place from which you will live beside me. There will be much celebrating when you arrive, and we can see it together. It will not all be fun though, there is much for you to learn. From me and from the Inquisitor._

_I will see you soon. Be safe on your travels._

_Princess Quinn_

* * *

I touch the writing, reading it over and over until the oil lamp dwindles and dies. As the first rays of sunrise cut through my window I take her letter with me to watch it. The sun paints the ocean in a path of orange and I'm hit with the stark realize I will soon look out my window and not see the water.

And as much as this place is a part of me, it will become a memory I miss and not the reality I find home in. It hurts to imagine that, but it is much more painful to know that my brothers, that everything I love will be so far away. That if something were to happen, it would be seasons before I knew.

I take a long steadying breath brought by the knowledge that I will have to trade one life for another. My eyes tear and I force them away.

And Ahmiran. The lump in my throat chokes me at the thought of him. Because now I will be so far away, even when he comes back, I won't be able to see him. We will never be able to stand like we did and stare at the sunrise. Well, I will never be able to stand like this and watch it come over the water. He will have those rituals with someone else and I will probably be forgotten.

As silly as that is, when I think that, it draws the wave of my own misery crashing down and my tears drown out the sound of anyone else's joy.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: Glad you guys like this. :) I've been sitting on this story idea for a long time now, but I was always worried it wouldn't have an audience... So - thank you for keeping my fears at bay through your amazing feedback. Also, if you are gonna internet propose to me, you can't do it as a guest (I don't even know your name then) :P

Just to clear it up - Yes, a turn = one year. Also 1412 under the chapter number is the year in this world in case you were wondering. Both Quinn and Rachel were born in 1400.

They are so close to the meet... So very close. I can taste it. Last chapter of character establishment and the framing of the story. And a little bit of manipulation that has profound and echoing effects.

Don't forget to R&R. :) I might have another chapter available for posting. ;) Thank you in advance.

* * *

**Chapter 5**

**Quinn 1412**

I wait all day for the signal fires, for any sign that the Berry family will arrive as expected. I can finally wear the color purple like my mother, because my mate is coming. So dressed in royal purple for the first time, I wait.

The sun drags a blaze of orange and then a radiant pink into the sky and as the shadows grow longer, I pray.

In truth, I don't know what it is I am praying for anymore.

It began as me asking for the Berry family to be safely enroute but delayed. Now, I'm just praying that whatever happened causing them to arrive late wasn't terrible.

I've spent far too much time reading on civil unrest for my own good, so the images I have in my mind frighten me more than the prospect of who is coming.

I spend the the afternoon pacing the palace, agitated, moving from room to room looking through every window at the horizon. It's a horizon that I imagine everytime I look will be clouded with bodies as a quarter of the standing army and my future mate arrive.

There is something very frightening and yet exciting about having my mate come. Even the word, twists me confusingly. I feel like something has been taken from me, some important something I can't define, but despite that, I'm elated.

While I know it is my duty to love her, I did find it difficult to write the short letter I sent to her with the Inquisitor. It was as if my hands belonged to someone else while they wrote, because I couldn't believe I was writing to her.

It all felt very much like a dream, or a nightmare depending upon what state of panic I'm in when I think of it.

I restlessly return to my room and stare at everything. I measure my bed, my dresser, my private eating table with eyes that are different somehow. I look at them as I imagine a stranger would.

I judge them.

I judge myself before the long sliver of mirrored glass at the end of my room.

I have never felt so - I don't know the word, uncomfortable? Yes, I've never felt so uncomfortable in my own skin. It's as if no eyes have ever fallen on me but the ones coming, the clear brown ones the Inquisitor spoke of. I can feel my hands shaking and I firm them into fists to keep from looking as afraid as I fear I do in my reflection.

When a light tap at my door summons me from my pensive reflection, I'm surprised to see it's my mother. She closes the door behind her. She has a look on her face that I don't understand.

She doesn't say anything, but I feel her looking through me. As the time passes her face becomes wounded and when I see a sliver of gloss in her eyes, I speak. "What is it mother?"

"I am moved by you in that gown."

The way she says it makes me feel anxious and vulnerable. I don't know why, but it does. I combat the feeling, the way it twists my throat, by rushing words, "a queen shouldn't cry."

She approaches me and despite myself when she is close enough for me to reach out, its all too overwhelming in that moment and I press into her arms. In that instant, I'm not a future Queen, I'm not even a Princess, I'm just a child. I hang on to that, on that inadequacy, while my mother's words ply on my heart.

"Quinn, never forget that tears are good when they come with noble reason. We should most certainly spend our tears on the living while we have the chance to impart our emotion unto them."

I nod silently while she leads me over to the fire and slides to the warm marble beside it. This is the least she has seemed like a queen in my whole life. I don't know if it is because I wear her colors or because she looks like any Winlean I have seen in the city. My mother is just a woman and the realization bothers me. The Queen doesn't look brave or strong at all with tears in her eyes. If anything, she appears very fragile. It reminds me of why I can never cry, why I must be brave no matter what.

No one can ever see a weakness like this.

I join her beside the hearth and her hand finds mine after a moment. I look down at it as it squeezes mine softly. My hand looks so small in comparison.

"You asked me a question before Rachel was picked as your mate. Do you remember that?"

"Yes. I wanted to know what to do if I had a mate picked. If I didn't love them?"

She nods fixing her eyes on me. "What I'm about to tell you, I have warred over since your declaration as future queen, because I knew this was in your future."

I swallow, waiting. It's been three turns. I can't imagine any decision that would take a queen that length of time to decide on. I am puzzled and alarmed by it. "Why so long?"

"Because there are some things that once said, they can never be unsaid." She regards me evenly, "if there is one thing you can learn in your studies, it is the gravity of your words and actions regardless of whether you are a queen or not."

"But as a queen it means more?"

"No, it doesn't. I was Rhainn Fabray long before I was the Crown Princess, and even Queen. The words were all equal amongst those stations." My mother stares at the flames, "being a queen simply means the words I speak reach a wider audience. It doesn't give them more power."

I nod, because I think I understand.

"Tell me, mother."

"It is about Rachel, and the role she will play in your life. And what you will need to do to accommodate that role." Her eyes glow with the firelight as she remains staring into it. I nod, and as unhappy as I feel in the silence between us, I'm grateful that she is here.

"When I first met your father I was very nervous. He came here to Winland very much the way Rachel will soon and I remember feeling so," she blinks at her memories, "uncomfortable. I was excited, but afraid at the same time."

"Yes." I say it as both acknowledgement of those feelings and to provoke more wisdom from my Queen.

"It will be like that for a while, but only as long as you allow it to be. I need for you to give me your word you will try to open your heart. To trust her and alleviate the tension these first few years can bring."

I stare into the crackling embers at the base of the fire. "What if she doesn't like me?"

I can see her eyebrow arching in skepticism out of the corner of my eye as a slow smile spreads her face. It makes me feel better. "I doubt she will dislike you."

The words that come do it without my consent. "What if I dislike her? What then?"

"It is important you figure out a way around that. You don't have the luxury of choice like others."

A sigh of irritation hits my throat. "I understand." It is my duty so I can have my throne.

"I know you understand she must be your mate for you to get the throne, but there is so much more to it." I feel bad she knows my thoughts and says them with such clear disappointment.

I don't want to be a disappointment.

"A mate isn't just someone who will rule by your side. Your father is _my_ mate Quinn; and a mate is the person you will live with, and love, and eventually bear children with. They are the only person you can trust, completely, share your fears with, seek counsel in. It is important you remember that there is emotion in this, not just politics."

She runs a hand over my face, tracing my hair and then pushes it back so I can look at her. "I know the Goddess picked well for you. Don't be afraid of your destiny, it is all very simple."

I don't know what to say, because it is anything but _simple_.

She sighs heavily when she meets my gaze. "There are things I can't tell you yet, because I want you to get to know her. However, I promise you can be warm without the threat of betrayal. You just have to be who you are, and not who you believe yourself to be."

Her words don't make sense.

I lick my lips before I give voice to the confusion of my thoughts. "Why are you so worried about me being unfair to _her_?" I don't mean to make it sound quite so cold, but it comes out that way because it isn't fair that my own mother cares so much about this girl she hasn't met.

"Because your hands are shaking and all you are doing is meeting your new mate. If I were in _her_ shoes, meeting you and coming here for the first time, I would be so very afraid and you are the only person who can make that easier. You will be the only one that matters."

I remember back to the Inquisitor's words. He said Rachel read like my mother and it was a gift from the Goddess to have someone who would be as gentle and wise as my mate will be. What he really meant is that I'll never be gentle, nor wise. I know it because I could see it in his eyes when he returned from Emberlin.

Things have been different ever since and I'm positively ill over hearing her name repeated like a shadow in my passing by everyone. Rachel is the name that endcaps every sentence spoken when people don't think I can hear. That she will temper me, teach me patience, make me warmer. That she will make me a better Queen, and that is by far the worst one of all.

I hope she is as ugly as a plaguebringer because that is all I have left in comparison to her seeming perfection, with all the things she is capable of making _me_.

If I'm fit to be Queen, I should be all that on my own. I shouldn't need anyone.

I _don't _need anyone.

"What are you thinking Quinn?"

I snap my eyes to my mother's. "I don't know."

She sighs and leans forward to place a kiss on my forehead. "We will talk more at another time. I'll leave you to your thoughts."

I watch as she goes to the door and when she opens it, she smiles back at me. "Take the time to get to know Rachel. You will have the throne, it is your fate Quinn. I just hope that the love you build will be the foundation to making that fate last."

"I don't understand. Why do I need her as my mate at _all _if the throne is mine?"

She grows very serious and I frown, waiting. "Because you must have someone to guard you and help you when I'm gone."

I nod, though I don't feel helped at all. However, it is my duty and important to my mother, so I resign myself to it. "I will love her then. For you, so you are proud of me."

She frowns then, it is very deep and darkens the blue of her eyes. "It is not for me, it is for you Quinn. The crown is very heavy when you carry it alone."

My mother closes the door, leaving me to my thoughts. As the fire crackles I bolt the wood door closed and return to the hearth. In the silence of my room I stare into the fire until I measure the ever darkening sky. When I finally get up I see the package Rachel gave me sitting alone beside the hearth.

I never opened it.

I don't know why.

I reach for it and taking up my spot by the fire again, I tear it open. It is a shimmering folding of silk. I touch it, run it through my hands. My eyes find the parchment that came tucked within it and I caress the material as my eyes go over the writing.

It's in Midlandian, thank the Goddess, because Thursian is so irritating and difficult to read.

_Princess Quinn-_

_I have sent this to you as a gift. It is from the Weave, from the thousand year old worms my family harvests. They only make this silk once every fifty or so turns. I wanted you to have it Princess. I fear they do not make much, so perhaps this can warm your shoulders in the cold season._

_I will come to you soon, I swear. We make preparation even now. The trip is long, but to see you at the end makes me very happy. I look forward to seeing everything there is in Winland. I hope you will take the time to show your home to me._

_I feel so many things and I know I should say more, but I will save my other words for when we are together. Goodbye my Princess, I pray the Goddess gives you good dreams until I arrive._

_Loyally yours - Rachel_

I stare at the words _my princess_ and _yours_ until my eyes blur. I don't know why the words bother me so, why they make me feel uncomfortable just as my mother said. I drop the letter, letting it flutter to the floor.

The cloth twists in my hands and rainbows bounce and dance. I don't want to admit it, but it is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It makes me angry and I don't know why. It makes everything in my life that much harder to bear.

I press my face to it, breathing deep a sweetness I cannot place. I wonder nervously, if it's her. If it's what's left of her skin from touching the silk. I swallow tightly, debating on how I feel about it. I frown when I remember that how I feel doesn't _matter_. It is a duty and nothing more.

I bow silently under the weight of my obligations, until a thought strikes me and I lift my head.

Rachel is good, like my mother.

The fire dances before me and I stare into it, mesmerized by it as my thoughts race. I think back on my mother's words, on the Inquisitor's, on the parallels between Rachel and my mother. I find a modicum of comfort in Rachel's temperament, even though I still feel angry over something nebulous and undefinable.

The feeling fades slowly as I trace the softness in my lap with idle hands. When I can finally pull my eyes away from the fire, it falls to the soft scrolling writing on the page before me. I trace the letters as they loop along their way. My eyes stop on the word _loyally_ and I read it over and over, studying the curves of the first letter as it glides into the rest.

She has the writing of a Queen, and when I think that I smile because it means the Goddess didn't hear Gregory's prayers.

She only heard mine.

Because Rachel is good, just like her writing and her gift. Those things couldn't come from a terrible person. She is good just as the Inquisitor and my mother said. A bolt of excitement carves through me.

I bound up from my place, dropping the silk on the edge of my bed. When I get to my door, I look back at the shimmering cloth and return to retrieve it. I stare down at it, pull it into my hands to see that it's real. I don't understand why, but I have to say the words in my mind.

"My mate, Rachel."

I lick my lips as I rush a breath and set the silk back down gently. When I pass my things, my table, my dresser, my reflection; my eyes aren't nearly as harsh as they were before. I have faith that she is someone worthy of the Goddess' favor.

I don't know where I'm running once I'm out of my room, but I run. I feel the marble under my feet, feel the air race into my body. When I get to the end of the hall, I grab the window and swing out dropping into a dive.

The wind screams past me, wipes my eyes with tears of relief as I race toward the palace gardens below. The flowers blur into splashes of color, until I blink them to focus. A breath shy of impact, I flatten out from my dive and raise my voice in a whoop of excitement as I clear the low wall close enough to touch it.

I can't seem to contain the joy I suddenly feel. My purging scream echoes around me as I fly, drawing startled glances that melt into smiles when I whip past.

My people smile with me, with the knowledge we all hold.

My mate, and the future, are coming.

I fly all the way to the temple in the dying light, trading shadows for the final burn of the sun. And just because I'm so uncontrollably giddy with excitement I bank in through the oculus at the top instead of using the normal steps.

I land hard on the tile, the sting of impact on the soles of my feet. I'm standing in almost in the same place where I fell in the ash of the tiles. The floor is clean now, scrubbed away are those who weren't chosen.

The memory of it drags me to my knees and I kneel. Alone, I trace the marble, touching it to ensure my memories are a starkly true as the marble beneath me.

That my fate is as real as the rest of the world around me.

A smile tugs on my lips, and when I reach up to touch it, feel it - a laugh startles me.

"Praying?"

It's Gregory, and I climb to my feet.

"No."

"Your mate is coming."

He moves from the temple entryway to the wall, leaning back on it heavily. His eyes bore into me and I swallow under the inspection. "Well?"

"Yes, she is coming." I answer softly, afraid to put too much tone in my words.

Gregory nods slowly, crossing his arms. "I'm sorry."

I don't understand. His smile is somewhat happy. "Why?"

"Because now everything that you fear will come true." He grins at me, "you have worked so long and so hard to be the perfect Queen and now you will lose it all."

My heart stops beating, but I try to hide it, measuring the cold calculation in his eyes. I feel a frown pulling on my face with the same intensity of the smile spreading his. "What do you mean, lose it all? I can't be Queen unless I have a mate."

Gregory holds out a hand. "I don't mean to upset you. However, everyone knows that once you have a mate you are at the mercy of them." His finger points up at the statue of the Goddess towering behind me. "Even she knew it, she picked a Thursian Winlean as your mate after all."

I blink. "What about the Thursian?"

He scoffs. "You must know, you are the one that studies. They are some of the most cunning, deadly people in the kingdom. The Goddess must have wanted to give you a mate that could control you and rule the kingdom instead of you."

"That isn't true." I remember back to the silk Rachel gave me and her letter. Surely those things prove she is nothing but what the Inquisitor said she was. "She is kind."

Gregory frowns, nodding slowly. "I say this as a brother who loves you even though I'm often annoying. She may play kind, but there is no one in your life you can trust. Not me, not the Inquisitor, not mother. Perhaps the Queen most of all, because she would tell you anything you needed to hear in order for her to ensure the throne stays in our family. Why would anyone tell the prey they are walking into a trap?"

"Mother would never lie to me."

"Just like she didn't lie when you almost killed father? Or are you forgetting that secret was kept from you."

When Gregory mentions my trespass, my horrible mistake, I'm wounded all over again. His voice keeps going. "You do realize you would have killed mother too, don't you?"

I swallow shakily. "What?"

Gregory shrugs. "They are a true mated pair." He approaches me slowly, and when he is near enough, he touches my head. I don't look up at him, until he pulls me toward him and hugs me tightly. I'm so surprised by it, shocked, I don't know what to do. His words press into my ear. "They didn't want to tell you, they promised me not to, but I'm your brother and I love you." His arms crush me. "You deserve to know that the moment you fall in love, the moment you are happy - your life will be at risk because of her. And anyone that wants to take your throne can do it, through her."

I wheeze in a breath. "What do you mean?"

"You will be tied, and when she dies, _you _will die." I can't help but hear the promise in his words. He moves back and his hand pulls my face up to meet his. "I've decided I'm better off without a mate, because I refuse to have my destiny tied to someone other than myself. You should remember that and guard your heart well. Our people deserve a ruler as impenetrable as the defenses of the kingdom."

The final swatches of light catch on his eyes and they churn and glow. "Once you and Rachel fall in love and mate, it will be just like mother and father. And you will be weak, and the kingdom will be another's for the taking."

My stomach twists painfully, because I hear the promise in those words too. "I'll never fall in love." I state, definitively.

He laughs. "Then I'm sorry for your duty Quinn. I'm sorry for the years you will be alone." He smiles thinly, and with more pity than I thought he could have. "I don't envy you Quinn. What you will have to endure, and suffer through, the vile things that heathen will do to you-" he sighs heavily, "you don't deserve it little sister."

I feel the wave of fear crash back into me. "What things?"

"Anything she wants of you, regardless of consent. It will be so much harder without love between you." He hesitates, unsure of what to say, and then finally imparts his words to me. "I don't even want to imagine how frightening that will be for someone like you. I have no doubt there could be sport in breaking your spirit."

The statement blossoms a very cold, leaking dread into me.

I haven't thought much about having a mate aside from having one as a set piece beside me on the throne. I might have even gone so far as to imagine a kiss before bed, because I've seen the King and Queen kiss. However, Gregory's words provoke a whole different connotation to the union.

It draws up images that I not only don't want to imagine, they are things I don't want to _live_.

"That isn't true." I refute, pulling away. Certainly as a future Queen I could never be subject to anything without my consent.

Gregory catches my arm. "I hope not. Perhaps because she is a female she will be softer with you, though they are all phenomenal swordsworn, so who knows what a blade at your throat would make you do." I tear out of his grip, escaping the perverse smile on his lips.

I remember distinctly that the Inquisitor requested Rachel have time to practice with the Captain, to continue to hone her skills. It makes my hands sweat. I glance up at Gregory briefly, and the smug pull of his face punctures me to the center of my heart.

Perhaps the Goddess did hear his prayers.

I scowl at him, overcome suddenly by crushing emotion and panic. "This is your fault!"

"What is?"

"This future!" I don't know how to say it, or what I'm feeling. As I stare at him in the writhing darkness, I want to punish him for what he has done to me, to my life, to _my_ kingdom.

He actually laughs, his cruelty once again rampant over his features and in the darkness of his eyes. "You have no idea what horrible things the future will hold for you."

It's another promise and I have no doubt it will be kept. His laugh follows me as I fly away.

* * *

When the night finally falls, I find myself in the library wing of the palace as the torches around the city are lit. I stare out the window as one by one, they spark to life and warm the archways and windows. The white marble shifts in orange tones against the dark of the sky. My hands strangle the sill, they are all that holds me upright as Gregory's words echo in my ears.

My world feels different to me even now, even though I've looked on it so many times. I don't want it to be different, I don't want to be different either. I don't want to be destroyed under the weight of my future.

Turning away, I focus on the high ceiling and eye the banners of Queens and Kings that came before me. From the muted color of the past, to the vibrant hues of my parents portrait they depict the royal lineage I carry. It's odd how I never paid attention to the relationships between rulers and their mates, just their actions.

I stop when my eyes trace to Queen Arkani and her mate. I eye the both of them, the gowns they wear. They are beautiful, and the Queen's mate I remember as a great scholar worthy to hold a place beside her. They were the last dual Queens to share a throne, until now.

I slide down the wall, pressing my face to my raised knees. It is then that I realize what has been taken from me, what this vacant horrible feeling is inside me. It's losing the last unknown in my life, the final choice I _could_ have made. I have always known somehow that I would be a Queen, that I would give my life for my people.

And I have envisioned that without complaint I would carry the burdens of a kingdom without a flicker of fear.

What I didn't realize was that this one small thing would be so big.

Just the sheer idea of it, of knowing exactly where my life will go and who it will be with, frightens me. It sickens me that I will give up more of myself than I thought I would in the name of my crown. And if I'm a good Queen, no one will ever know. No one will ever know my pain.

And even my heart can't be mine.

It can be noone's.

I have to harden it for the betterment of my people, because if not me on the throne then it will be _him_. I can't ever let that happen.

I look up at the banners again and I wonder if every one of the smiling faces I see are true. Or did they, just like me, smile even when they felt like crying. I force a thin smile to my lips, that crumbles the moment it's formed. It's my following thought that brings the rip of tears and cries out of me though.

It's knowing that _she_ will take my crown, and my body, and my spirit because I'm not even able to smile like a Queen should.

I wrap myself in my wings, hiding until my future arrives as I cry my misery silently into my arms.


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Hope you enjoy the meet. :) Ten bucks to everyone who sees Quinn's actual feels come through despite her words. Can you say conflicted?

Also, those of you who are fans of L&L - I submitted to a publisher tonight. So, keep your fingers crossed.

* * *

**Chapter 6**

It's all surreal to me, the subsequent days following my announcement as the Chosen. There is so much that seems to happen in such a small sliver of time.

In accordance to the traditions of my people, I'm branded. Unlike my kinsmen that wear the standard of their family boldly against the skin of their arms and faces, mine is hidden. The black etchings weave along my left side painfully from hip to shoulder, a secret reminder of my lineage, a history I know but cannot show.

I had often imagined it, what it would feel like to have ink bleed into me knowing I belong to someone and I assumed that knowledge of belonging would balm the burn of the needle point. The reality is something else entirely, because I've been dredged across and through without even seeing her face.

There is no comfort in that.

Then there were the celebrations, were gratefully there was enough liquor to mute whatever feeling I had. There were fittings too, where the silk my people have woven for trade, were draped over me in long cold sheets and hemmed into the most beautiful gowns I've ever seen. My only thought on that, was that the tugging of the material should have come before the tattooing on my skin.

The last and worst part, was the saying of goodbye. I had wanted to take enough time to do it properly, to walk the city and look one last time on the places that were important to me. There wasn't enough time for that though, there is never enough time.

The Captain of the guard had come just as promised, and I'm was not nearly as ready as I thought I would be. I certainly wasn't ready for the fact that he came to fetch me with what felt like the whole of the royal guard.

And it was there amid the dizzying crush of bodies, I said goodbye to my youngest brother, and left my home.

When we left, when I had my last look over the crumbling old towers guarding the North Coast, I told myself that leaving would be an adventure. That this was the first exciting step in my new life.

That was nine days ago.

I have _since_ discovered that while I have seen amazing things I never thought I would, it is anything but exciting.

I'm frightened, far more than I have ever been in my life. Every dawn, has exchanged a little of my hope for fear, and it seems to be all I'm filled with now. The closer we get to Winland, the worse it is. It is so pervasive that I can't sleep, I can't eat. I spend my nights sick to my stomach over the burden I carry. There are no words, no glimmering far off futures that can make it better. It certainly doesn't matter that my father is with me and a young girl from home. There is no comfort they could give me even if I asked.

And I'll never ask for it.

"Rachel," it's my father's voice and it summons me from my thoughts with the directness of his tone, "land there." He points out what looks like a final stand of trees, before an endless flat expanse of green plains. I nod to him and when I shift direction, a yell goes out and the whole brigade of soldiers surrounding me banks into my motion without breaking formation.

They glide me down to the open space by the trees, and I wait silently as they scour the area.

The Captain moves in beside me, bowing graciously. "My lady, is something wrong?" He speaks Thursian elegantly and it continues to surprise me.

It is a small gift I'm grateful for.

"No." It's my father's voice from behind me. "I need to speak with my daughter alone."

It makes me uncomfortable that the Captain seems to not even hear my father's words. He doesn't move his eyes from my face and they search me as he waits on my word. I've never had such intense study focused on me before. I've never had someone wait on me before. "My lady, do you need anything?"

"No, I'm sorry, I need a moment alone with my father."

"No sorry is needed, of course my lady, take as much time as you require. We are very near Winland now."

His words make my stomach churn as I follow my father and the young Thursian toward the treeline. I can see the guards moving around in the shadows, putting distance between themselves and the three of us.

The girl's hands work in the dark, and spark a lantern to life. My father takes it quickly, his motions sharp and jagged. The edginess in his actions and voice are so clear the rush of panic shoots through me. I don't know how I can bear both his nerves and my own.

"You must be perfect when you meet the princess."

My father paces, rattling the lantern in his hands around with him as the girl goes into the pack strung around her shoulders and chest. I stare at him as he chews his fingernails to the nub and she dredges a wet cloth over my face. It's freezing cold and I catch my breath over it. My stomach knots and the gentle motions hurt me all the same.

"Remember to be polite, and say thank you."

"I will." I shiver as wet trails are left on my arms.

"You must remember you are a lady. You are the mate to the princess."

"I understand."

"I'm sorry, but you can't have your sword, hand it over Rachel." He holds out his hand.

I look down at the blade on my hip and refute him weakly. "Yes, I can, the Inquisitor said-"

"And who do you owe your duty to? A mage you don't know, or your father?" His hand strains in the air before me.

"What if I need it?" My throat is tight as I unbelt the sword at my waist and give it over to him. I knew the moment we flew over the dividing line between the wild plains and the fertile fields of the royal lands, that a moment like this was coming, but my hands shake all the same.

The only thing that was ever mine is gone now.

"There is no where safer for someone like you. You will have an army." He regards me with a disbelieving smile in his eyes and when that shimmering gaze falls to my wrist, his face twitches. "And the bracelet, too. I have no doubt that there is jewelry to replace it in the palace."

"No." I swallow uncomfortably and cover the offensive copper with my free hand. It is the last thing I have from my father that passed.

"All right. Eventually you will outgrow those old things. You will be a queen, after all."

I stare into the lantern my father holds, stare into the bright white fire as a stranger's hands strip me bare of all my clothing. And though I want to, I don't stop her. There is something terrifying about it. In my readings I've learned how they act in the capital and I can't help but wonder if this will be one of many times I'll be stripped bare tonight. In the back of my mind, I envision the princess doing the same thing with much more in her intentions.

As her mate, I'm hers to do with as she pleases.

I cover myself as the girl goes back to her pack, leaving me shaking and cold. It's so much colder here than at my home, the ground hard, the air crisp. It chills my skin.

"Now Rachel, remember not to talk back. You can't replace one weapon for another. Do not engage the Princess unless she engages you first. And don't lift a blade unless you have to defend yourself. I hear that they favor softness in the capital." I don't think he does it intentionally, but my father rattles my sword at me. "This is your new duty and it will bring honor to our family."

Standing here, humiliated and wet, while a child pulls free a silk gown before me, I can't picture any honor or duty worth the horrible way I feel.

"Do you understand me?" My father asks.

I don't say anything as she spreads the silk on the ground before me and I step into the bare space encircled in material. I close my eyes as the layers of silk course up my body. I wouldn't have words even if I could speak them. I blink back the burn of tears and my father turns away, taking some of the light with him. He is nothing like the man that loved me and let me sit on his big boots and cling to him as he walked the city all those years ago. He's changed. He has changed already and I'm not even Queen yet.

He never would have stripped me of my sword. I keep thinking it until my throat is choked so tightly I might not be able to breathe.

"I'm done, my lady."

I swallow and hesitate a glance down at the forest green shimmer covering me. It's beautiful, and I trace the sleeve to where it cuts against the skin on my forearm. In this instant, I don't think I've ever felt this terrible before in my life.

This alone.

That emotion of empty, miserable lonesomeness carries with me, as I follow my father dutifully out into the stirring of guards. It's silly that I feel this way, illogical, as I'm overwhelmed by the sheer number of Winlean that regard me as I pass them. There are too many Winlean to feel _this_ alone.

The Captain is smiling as I near him. "You look refreshed, my lady. Are you ready?"

"Yes." I frown and he echoes the expression after a moment, his gaze sliding to the sword my father holds in his hands.

"Right well," he turns from us, "let's be off!" He yells, and the forward guard springs into the air right before I spread my wings and we all loft into the sky.

I look back over my shoulder, at the flat expanse of land behind me, where I know my home is - somewhere. My eyes burn with the emptiness I see behind me even though the place I miss only exists in my memories.

My father drops my blade into the darkness of the forest, and when I see that - I can't look back any longer. It might kill me.

* * *

I don't know how long we fly into the growing darkness. It is long enough for the land to lose all detail, and the shadows to pull into one another, obscuring everything. It's long enough for me to draw a parallel on the darkness of the land and the darkness of my future.

I almost don't believe it when someone says my name.

"Lady Rachel?"

It's the Captain again, his words are very soft and low. He moves in beside me so close that I fear for a moment we might get tangled and crash. "My lady, look out there, there is Winland."

He is pointing directly in front of us, but I can't see what he's talking about. All I see is a dark looming cloud and a sharp drop to land below. I scan the valley ahead, blinking the misery out of my eyes so I can clearly make out the sheer stone wall that seems to guard it.

All I see are fields. I narrow my eyes, when something catches the light.

At first I think it looks very much like a thread of necklace chain, but thicker. It is stretching from the cliff closest to us and going up. That is when I realize that the cloud isn't moving, that it sits absolutely still in the sky before me.

"The cloud?"

"My lady, it's not a cloud."

As the final burn bleeds away from the horizon, I'm able to see flickers of light in the swirling puffs of white. The glow dots in random places, and as soon as I recognize them, as soon as I'm close enough to make out their existence, a horrible sound comes to my ears.

It is a groan of metal, like someone bending a sword with their bare hands.

I glance at my father, but he doesn't acknowledge me. His eyes are focused on the ground. That is when I look down as well. We are passing over a massive metal hinging of some kind, a bolt the size of a house. It might as well be the biggest chunk of metal I've ever seen.

"What is it?" I ask in awe as the chain attached to it moves slightly and the metal groans in reply.

"A tether," the captain smiles at me with what seems like pride, "it is one of the anchors for the city."

It vanishes beneath me and then we are climbing. In a massive wall of bodies we move upward and follow the great chain links, chase them almost vertically.

They disappear into the cloud line above.

It becomes harder to breathe, harder to keep going as the air thins. I feel like I'm gasping. I must sound like I am because a guard in front of me looks over his shoulder.

That's when I hear the rush of water, and I see it tumbling between breaks in the cloud bank beside me. I see slivers of dirt as well, raw wet earth that melts to stone.

We hit the plate of clouds and the wetness covers my mouth, soaks into me, clings to me as I push forward. "Higher!" The Captain yells out, and I arch back on instinct trying to get more clearance just in case.

The outcry must have been for me, because the edge of a wall streaks out of the clouds and I'm so close I touch it as I pass over. We burst through the moisture, and from this high the glow returns to the horizon. It blinds me when I turn to it even with as obscured as it is by the misting sky around me.

And then, there are no words for what I see.

Winland.

White and gray stones, smoothed to a sheen as bright as a fresh sword blade, surround everywhere I look. They form low buildings and then huge arching towers that twist into the twilight. They glow against the sky as the sun hangs on them. Every rooftop, shimmers in alabaster, rainbows of colors that I have never seen in my life reflect before my eyes and shift as I move.

Ahead of me, a wide open circle marks the center of the city and the soldiers angle down toward it. I watch the first of them start landing as I pass over the golden temple, staring right at the face of the Goddess beside me. I glance down through the hole in the center, focusing on the shimmer of torches below. It is the most magnificent thing I have ever seen.

Until the palace materializes from the cloud cover in the distance.

Then not only do I _not_ have words, I don't have feeling either. It makes me numb to see it. It's the color of the moon, and shines just as brightly with purple banners fluttering in the evening breeze. I swallow tightly on the image of it, on the reality of it.

Someday this will be my home. The thought twists my emotions and I force it far away, burying the idea away for another time.

"Rachel, remember everything I said." My father says quickly, as I change my angle and start my descent.

I nod silently, overwhelmed and breathless with both the idea of this place and the altitude. I had forgotten it, but now that my nerves start winding and I can feel my heart racing, now the thinness of the air announces itself by making me dizzy.

A horn blow punctures the air around us. It announces us and makes me realize something terrifying, I'm about to look upon my mate.

I'm about to see the girl I've flow the kingdom to stand beside.

Oh, Goddess.

When I touch the ground for the first time, the coldness of the marble shoots through my feet and ices my spine. I shiver involuntarily, as I stare up at the wide mouth of the palace and more soldiers land. They streak out of the sky, interrupting my view, of the two figures there.

"Lady?" I turn blankly to the Captain. He inclines his head toward the mouth of the palace, a smile on his lips. "It is time."

"Are you sure?"

He laughs softly, "yes, I am sure."

The soldiers, move out of the way as I follow the Captain of the guard to the front of the grouping. Every step makes me want to dig my heels in. It all seems so fast, such an unbelievable whirlwind. I would give anything to be back home, stuck in the desk I hated with my duty clearly laid before me. I really want nothing more than to turn right around and fly back at double the pace.

There is a soldier before me and he shifts to let me pass, meeting my eyes briefly. I want to tell him to stay right where he is so I can hide behind him, but I don't know how to say it.

"Lady, we are happy to have you home." He whispers as I pass.

I swallow when I'm finally able to understand his words. Those words do so much to me in such a small moment. They comfort and hurt me to a degree I didn't think was possible, but more than anything - they honor me.

They give me praise, not because I've proven my worth, but because I've been voucher for by the Goddess. She has picked _me_. I am _her_ chosen, and with that guiding me, how can I be afraid? How can I be anything other than the Queen the Inquisitor said I would become?

I lift my eyes and square my shoulders at the image before me. It is vastly different from what I was expecting. The Queen's eyes are all I can seem to see, and they burn into me as her lips carve in a wide knowing smile. She is so very beautiful, more than any book or one of Ahmiran's stories.

The Captain rises slowly from his position. "My Queen and King, we have arrived and we beg pardon for the lateness of the night. I felt one more night on the open road would be a bit much for the Lady Rachel and my men as well."

The Queen holds up a hand, "No pardon is needed Captain, travel is always unpredictable. It's better to have you back safely."

"Indeed." When the Captain looks back over his shoulder, his eyes say everything. I move forward under their urging, putting one foot in front of the other. I ignore the way my heart thunders, and I just focus on walking. I try to remember to breathe as I lift my eyes from the veins in the marble.

"My Queen, this is the Lady Rachel."

When I raise my eyes, a third figure turns the corner on the archway. I know it's Quinn, and when I think it and her name shoots through my mind, it rattles me to the very center of my being. At first the only thing I can see is her silhouette, the dark outline of her against the golden glow of the interior of the palace. And then she is walking down the stairs.

"And Lady Rachel, this is my daughter, the Princess, Quinn."

The light blossoms over her, coloring her hair as gold as the fields outside Emberlin in the Fall. Her eyes are the color of the fields in Spring, and they glitter in the sputtering torch light. She moves effortlessly, like she is flying though its her legs that propel her forward. And her wings; I've never seen anything so stark and purely white in my life.

When I realize I'm not breathing, is when I also realize the chattering of the crowd is silent as well. I want to look around, I want to see why they have stopped talking, but I can't look away from her.

I move out of the shadows, and the torchlight from the palace pools at my feet. When I'm finally in the light, Quinn slows to a stop and stares at me. I can't tell what she is thinking, but I also can't help but notice how her eyes widen and she swallows. Hard. As hard as I swallow in the following moment, because of the intensity of her eyes on me.

It's only a moment, because then she is moving again.

But it's enough.

I hold my face steady despite the sheer wave of joy I feel.

Quinn is nearing closer though, so I continue up, every step feeling like a sledge within me. They pound mercilessly as I walk up the stairs. When I stop beside her and I can see the Queen and King above us, I swallow and turn to face the gathering of people.

The roar of voices deafens me, screams that seem to move the air around me and tremble the stones under my feet. It makes my heart race, makes it impossible to process anything. I tear my eyes from the vision swimming before my gaze and I focus for the first time at the Princess at my side. Her eyes catch mine and it takes my breath away, not just because of the twisting of amber and green in them. It's because they are sad and riddled with a depth I can't place.

I don't know why, but I want to reach out and touch them, to close her lids and erase what I see. "Welcome to Winland, Rachel." Her voice tickles my ears, the accent different from anything I've ever heard. It's funny because the familiar Thursian words are as foreign on her lips as hers are on mine.

"Thank you, Quinn."

Her brow furrows as I say her name, and her eyes go everywhere like she's so afraid she may just run. Like she's looking for a way to escape. "Princess."

I blink at her after she corrects me. "I'm sorry, Princess Quinn."

"Just princess." She turns away. "And smile."

I don't know how I do it, but I do, and she does as well to the screams of an entire kingdom. It isn't her correction that makes my smile so difficult, it's the fact that she takes my hand and holds it like we've done it our whole lives.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Hi All, Just passing along the message, I'm publishing L&L: D this year. I got the contract! :) This is why I had to push out Parity and steal time away from this and other stories. I apologize for the lag time in getting this written and posted.

Good news is that I have a ton more written beyond this freaking chapter... So, if you want it, I'll give it up. /wink

Let me know cause these are going to go fast as we build to dizzying heights.

* * *

**Chapter 7**

**Quinn 1413**

A turn has passed since that dark girl cast a shadow over my world. A year of silence, and pensive thought. However she is back again, and this time, there is no escaping it.

We are to be bound, whether I want to or not.

We can delay no longer because the people talk. And talking leads to rumor, leads to dissent, leads to - well, leads to places I dare not let _my_ people go.

So I go - to do what I must for the good of a kingdom despite my heart. And in the void space here, behind the doors of the throne room, I'm not alone in body, but certainly in spirit. I wait, breathlessly - until my mother commands it with a few words.

"It is time."

The doors open in an echo of armor moving to attention.

I have walked into the throne room a thousand times, but this time when I enter, it feels bigger, impossibly heavy, like the air itself is weighed down with what's about to happen. My eyes dart around at the walls of people, their faces turned to stare at me. Those closest smile; whisper. The sound of their breath and words rumble like a fantastical monster; it echoes everywhere and makes my ears buzz.

It takes a moment for me to realize it's my breathing too. It's my panic.

My fear.

When my mother and father, the Queen and King enter the chamber behind me, the room goes silent. I think it is more frightening for it to be quiet because now everyone must be able to hear me gasping for air.

I lead my parents past the watchful eyes of the kingdom as is tradition. Gregory is beside me, acting good. He has been very quiet since our talk at the temple, almost as quiet as the room is now. That scares me more because when his heated words break over me, at least then I know what he is thinking.

In this silence, I can't imagine.

The room spills light, midday sun pouring through the windows high above. I look up at them, at the dripping silver walls surrounding them. I trace the unending rivers of shimmer to the alabaster ceiling high above me. My gaze settles back to the floor, the etchings of names that litter the marble away from me. It is the name of every Winlean that died in the overthrow of the mages.

It is the names of those that sacrificed their lives so that I could have the chance to stand where I do today.

I feel ashamed.

When I think that, my eyes dart up to the dais before me. The Ivory throne, the seat of the kingdom, is the first thing I see. I've stared at it before, measured the etching down the side in our ancient language, but now I see it for what it really is. It's no longer the symbol of power and pride, or responsibility and goodness. It is my future.

My fate.

It is the place where someday I will sit with my mate beside me.

And that is the next thing I see.

I see her.

Rachel.

She stands to the side, that same softness in her eyes she had before. A sorrow I can't place, but feel all the same. Dressed in a light green gown, it accents the tan of her skin and the ripple of dark hair the cascades the front of her. I try not to look too hard; I try not to notice the cream of her wings and how they frame the darkness of her so well.

As I get closer, her expression gets clearer, the detail filling in on her face. The swirl in her eyes, the tears unshed that hang there. Her lips, and the diamond shaped space between them from the fullness. They tremble as I pass, directing my eyes to the place above me.

I stop before the thrones and steady my stomach before turning to the waves of bodies and expectant faces.

My mother passes me, and father too. His hand brushes mine for the briefest of moments, and then he is gone. It feels like everything is coming to an end, in deference to this being a new beginning.

I can hear them move behind me, as my mother takes the Ivory Seat.

"Kneel, Princess."

I do as she commands of me. I stare at the doors we entered from, refusing to allow my gaze to waiver as it so desperately wants to. I refuse to allow the fear I feel to be seen by my people.

My mother speaks again, her voice soft yet carrying seemingly forever. "Thank you for your attendance, as this is a tremendous occasion; one I'm proud to share with all of you. The binding of the future queen, should be celebrated as it solidifies our future. I couldn't be happier to join two such powerful nations, the Thursian and Midlandians, together under the selection of our Goddess. It is a future I am confident will strengthen the kingdom, and bring glory to our lands."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see my mother's gown flutter, and her hand touches my head. "My daughter, on this day your fate is clear. Take heart in it, embrace it, trust it. The Goddess has chosen wisely, as always, in all things."

Her thumb strokes my head softly and I hesitate on everything from my breath to my poise when she summons my mate forward.

"Lady Rachel, come."

I hurry air into my lungs as my eyes follow Rachel's motions, the careful steps she takes toward us. She moves to a rhythm I cannot place, a cadence I cannot understand, and when she stands beside me it is so close I nearly feel the heat of her. It makes me dizzy with nerves, and frightens me more than a throne room full of people staring.

More than the promise of a throne ever could.

I don't understand why her being this close makes my heart thunder. Why I can hardly breathe, or think. How it is that as she kneels beside me, I become aware of the way she _feels_ there. It seems as if the left side of me has been vacant my whole life, and I didn't know it until now as she takes up that spot.

"Lady Rachel, today you join our family and become a part of a lineage that will continue to carry the crown. As the mate of my daughter, you will become a Queen."

"Take hands."

I do as my Queen wishes.

When I feel the silken ribbon over the top of my hand, I look over at it, swallowing hard at the white material as it twists around our hands. I trace up from the stitching of silk, to where Rachel is staring down at it too, at where the tears gather on her lashes and finally fall. They cut down her cheek and despite myself, I feel a pang of something deep in my chest.

Hers are the saddest eyes in all of the kingdom.

And when she cries it is somehow different from my mother, from I. It isn't a fragile kind of sorrow, it's brave and shameless.

The bow on our hands falls limply, and the swish of the silk as it settles in the only thing I can hear. Until my mother speaks.

"Princess, do you accept the responsibility laid before you?"

I nod, "Yes, my Queen."

"Do you promise to uphold the beliefs of our family? To guard and protect the kingdom, and it's people? To keep strong to your faith in the Goddess' wisdom?"

I hang on those words, feel them settle over me like the weight of Winland itself is held on my shoulders. The whole kingdom for that matter. My throat is tight. "Yes."

"And do you swear to uphold the law of the Goddess, taking the Lady Rachel as your mate, as has been decreed in her selection as your Chosen? To guard her, and keep her?"

In that moment, I feel her hand in mine. It's warm and real; fingers twisted around my fingers. And somehow that makes it so much harder to bear the weight of everything.

"I will."

"And you Lady Rachel?"

"I do, my Queen."

And it's done.

I feel like I should feel something more than the emptiness in my chest. I've read the stories, heard the words of people as I passed them. I should feel completed. I should feel like the parts of me that were missing have come home, the weakest parts, strengthened. If she really is my mate as the Goddess wished, I would have felt that.

But I don't.

I don't know if I feel comfort in that or not.

Suddenly I realize Rachel is facing me, and leaning forward. I don't know what she is doing, I don't understand it, until I realize - or hear the echoes of my mother's words.

"This binding is sealed with a kiss."

I swallow hesitantly, and spurred on by the thousands of eyes around me I do as is required of me.

I kiss her.

For a moment, all I can focus on is the breathless silence around me, the deep quiet before we pull away and the crowd will roar. However, as her eyes open and peer into mine, something changes. It's then that I can feel her lips, soft and warm. Her breath hot; and I breathe it into me. I can taste it, feel it trickle into me. Feel her skin against my face, see the darkness of her eyes from this close.

I don't know why I do it, but without my command, I press my lips firmer. It rolls her eyes closed, and everything is plunged in darkness as I follow that motion against my request. Behind my closed lids, I can still see her. My heart races, thunders faster than it has when I've flown over the city. I can feel it through my whole body, all the way to the tips of my wings. The pressure of her mouth, unassuming in it's contact - I can't explain it, can't place how it does _something_ to me.

It winds my emotions. That's what it does. It cracks something deep in my chest with the same fury of a lightning strike. The scorch of feelings leaves me void of air, yet somehow Rachel's breath is there, filling my nose and mouth and everything.

And when I feel Rachel's lashes feather over my cheek, my hand isn't mine - not when it circles her arm, keeping her steady of it's own volition. Her tears, drying, touch me, leak into me, through my skin.

I catch a choked breath and the moment is broken as Rachel pulls back. There is wetness on her nose, and when she reaches up to touch it, I realize it's _my_ tear. It's a drop of emotion pushed from the center of me. She looks down at her fingertip, and when her eyes lift back to my face she smiles softly.

She smiles the way I always wished my mate would.

"Princess?"

I turn to the person that spoke, and my eyes land on the circlet held in the hands of my mother It's silver, like the crown my Queen wears, but thinner, woven with filigree. It's something I've seen a handful of times, but now it's before me.

Mine.

I blink at it, at my mother's patient smile above me. That's when I realize I'm no longer kneeling facing the court. I've somehow turned, facing Rachel. I don't know what to do, if I should move, or not.

"Stay." My mother whispers. "It's right."

She moves behind me and I feel the tickle of expectation as her gown brushes over my wings. "With this symbol, I officially decree, you the incumbent Queens."

It's strange that for as long as I've waited and hoped for this, the only thing I can focus on is the way my father shifts in behind Rachel and her eyes widen as he places a matching weave of silver on her head.

It glitters in the tumble of her dark hair, and on reflex that perhaps she doesn't even realize, her head lifts higher. She doesn't cave under it, she rises to it, to the challenge and responsibility of it.

I don't even notice the crown is on me, until my mother's hands tidy the strands of hair around my shoulders, and I feel the weight of it when I turn my head. It's not much, just enough for me to remember my duty and my place. That every single person here and the hundreds of thousands I can't see, will be my responsibility.

Oh, Goddess. It's all so very real kneeling here beside the massive throne my mother will someday leave to me.

Rachel's hand tightens in mine then, and right as I begin to tumble into my fears, they are suddenly gone - stolen by her simple motion.

Just like I always imagined it would be.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: Another chapter, for you voracious readers! If you are interested, I can go forever on this... I mean - we could go about 14 chapters deeper if you want... until the first part ends cause I have all the way to that. And things can start getting a little... hotter and maybe romantic... Also, I've never written a Quinn!peen story, but damn I want to. So yeah, that's coming if you're onboard. Whatcha think?

If you didn't get the info, feel free to follow me on FB at Stephanie Kusiak Author and I'll add you to my personal if you'd like. I'll keep you up to date on silliness in my life and how the fanfic to publishing is going of L&L.

A/N2: They are 13 now... and obviously as they get older the "voice" of these characters will mature. :)

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**Chapter 8**

**Rachel 1413**

I dislike it here in Winland.

Everything is so different and horrible. I eat their food and it makes me sick because it isn't what I'm used to. I can hardly breathe this high in the air, and I spend all my time catching my breath. The currents are flat and I have to work so much harder to fly. The people make me uncomfortable with their eyes, with the way I can feel them always looking.

That bothers me the most. I've never been stared at like this before. Certainly, I've had Winlean regard me when I was speaking to them or the occasional glance from someone near my age, but this is different.

I feel like every motion, every word is memorized and remembered.

And judged.

The princess is the worst of them all, not because of her action necessarily but because I dreamed it would be different. I assumed it would be, since we are bound now.

Before arriving here, during the long days of travel, I fell asleep thinking about her, about the words the Inquisitor spoke a turn ago. My sleep has been dotted with images of a breathtakingly beautiful golden haired Winlean, and though I couldn't really see her face, I knew it was her. And though the dreams were shadowed pieces of an image, the way she made me feel was as clear as glass.

It was warm and safe. It was that same buzzing, bubbling charge of feeling that sparked through my hands when I dreamed about being in love when I was younger.

And very privately, sometimes I awake with a twisted heat in my stomach because I long for her and the dreams that she brings me.

The clash of reality with those hopes is so hard to bare. Where I imagined there would be warmth, nothing but cold assaults me. Where I hoped for laughter and smiles, her teasing words mock me and strip me to the bone.

She laughs at me, not with me, while she pokes fun of everything from my clothing to my accent. I didn't realize I had an accent before. When people traveled to Emberlin, I thought they were the ones that were different, now it is I who is the strange one. I'm the outsider, in my words, in my looks, in my dress.

I have never doubted myself before. I never gave much thought to beauty either, but her poking and prodding leaves me feeling uncomfortable in my own skin. Now when I look at myself all I see is flaw and I doubt every step I take.

My legs are too thin, hair too curled. My skin too tanned, my lips too thick. Everything about me is a miserable failure in her eyes and it drives me to tears when I'm alone.

For as cold and dispassionate as she is in the public eye, her action behind closed doors are almost despotic. I don't know how to explain it, but she looks for any opportunity to make me look bad, to show me that she is better. Everything is a challenge. Every lesson, every answer to the Inquisitor a race to see who can learn it first or say it first. And while I'm intelligent, she is years beyond me.

She makes me feel so stupid.

I'm better than her at some things, at painting and singing. From all my after dinner stories with my brothers, I'm better at the history of our home. I beat her at the castle piece game with ease. And when I'm in a mood and feeling up to the competition I secretly enjoy how mad she gets when I win. It amuses me to watch color surge up her face when she is wrong and the Inquisitor corrects her, when her green eyes flash with a barely hidden fury.

It makes me feel silly because sometimes I do it just so that I can enjoy how spectacularly beautiful she is when she is angry.

Like right now, as she sits across the table from me. The castle pieces frame the fury in her eyes.

"Strategy is the key to everything." The Inquisitor intones lightly by the empty hearth.

I look over my shoulder at him and he smiles mildly. When I angle my eyes back at the board between the princess and I, I have seven pieces left, she three. She picks up one and then sets it back down on its same spot.

"And part of strategy is not giving away your hand, princess."

She moves her army piece with barely veiled ire. "This is just a game."

I stare at the board for a moment and then destroy the piece with my ballista. It certainly is a game, one she is really poor at.

Two.

I move my troops toward her castle.

"You think you are so good." She whispers.

I really do, but I don't say it. I just fight the grin I feel.

"I'm not even trying." Quinn adds as her eyes focus on the board.

It shows, but I don't say that either.

Quinn moves her reserve troops across the map, positioning them on the hilltop by my castle. Every time I play this game with Quinn, she does the same few things. The first time, she did this little maneuver and destroyed half my army before I could get my pieces back into position. Now, I'm ready for it, I expected it earlier on, which is why I never moved my archers.

And another piece dies to my positioning on the map.

One.

I hear the Inquisitor raise his voice. "Rachel, I think your lineage is showing through. Your people were excellent strategists."

"And privileged," Quinn adds quietly.

I try not to respond, but I'm forced to because it's not true. "I'm not privileged, Princess."

"Yes you are." Quinn advances her position, putting her troops in danger of what is left of my army. She is baiting me to end the game.

"Princess, how am I privileged?" I don't give into the offering of her piece. I move my ballista instead, turning the piece to face her direction.

"Just finish it." Quinn raises her voice, staring in disgust at me. "You have won. Again."

"Tell me why it is you think I'm privileged, princess."

Quinn purses her lips. "Because the Inquisitor said so."

I hesitate a glance at him across the room. "Why did he say that?"

She snorts and points at the board. "Are you going to move?"

"Surrender, cause I have you beat." I whisper, but I'm still distracted by the idea that the Inquisitor thinks I'm privileged.

The Inquisitor clears his throat somewhere behind me and I turn around fully in my seat. "Inquisitor?"

"Yes, Lady?"

"Why do you think I'm privileged?"

He looks at me blankly. "I have no idea what you are referring to."

I frown. "The princess said that you said that I was privileged."

"I didn't mean to imply you were entitled if that was the meaning that was taken," he peers past me at Quinn. "I simply meant that your family has privilege."

I think that makes the implication better. I look back at Quinn and when I meet the angry glare across from me, I pause my thoughts.

"What is it, princess?"

"Surrender?" He voice is whipped with anger.

I blink, realizing I did in fact tell her to. I indicate the failing position. "Spare your troops, perhaps?"

"It's just a game, so no." She advances her piece again and they are in range now.

It's silly, but it annoys me.

"Yes. Surrender."

She holds my eyes, unblinkingly. I stare her down and I wait it out. "Pass."

Quinn fixes me with a look that could freeze water in the warm season. She regards the board again and then her hands slam to the table.

"I hate you!"

"Are you surrendering then?"

My words push her over the edge. Her teeth flash in the dim light of the study. "You may not be privileged, but you _are_ entitled! You think you have the right to have the throne, and you don't."

"Princess Quinn, the Lady Rachel is your mate; a little decorum, please." The Inquisitor scolds and I watch her face redden, his words making it that much worse.

She lowers her voice, "you may be my mate, but I'll never love you enough to make you a Queen."

I scowl, I feel it course over my face despite trying to stop it. The flash of my own anger is so hot, I say exactly what I want to. "There won't be a throne to have with you losing to me so easily," I pause, "_princess._"

If she could reach across the table and strangle me, I have no doubt she would with the blinding tempest building in her eyes. Her hands tremble on the table with her fury. "I wish you would get out of my palace and never come back."

"I wish I could too."

She doesn't say anything then. She gets up and excuses herself with a push from the table. I know she did it on purpose, so that the pieces would fall. And they do, clicking back and forth, keeping time with her angry steps.

The door slams behind her.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: More? I could do this all night cause for whatever reason everything is just flowing. And YAY for your messages (I'm leaning toward Rachel!peen, epic idea)! Let me know what you think of this additional little layer of stress.

* * *

**Chapter 9**

**Quinn 1414**

Despite the brightness of the sky, I feel unnerved as I slip into the dress I'm supposed to. I've done everything I'm supposed to do because the Inquisitor says I need to learn how to follow before I can lead.

He has no idea how much I wish I could follow the simplest things.

The dress is royal purple, dark like the sky after the sun sets. It's the only color I can wear now, that I'm bound. Mother says it makes my eyes look ethereal, but in the mirror in my bedchamber, I measure my face and realize the color makes the darkness in them palpable.

The rings of sleeplessness I wear, hang like a shroud over me. It is the stamp of a Queen, future or current.

I touch my hair, woven back in the traditional gathering of my people. It still falls on my shoulders, but it's back and away, braided far enough to stay out of my eyes. A future Queen cannot have her hair in her face when she's deciding the fate of the kingdom.

My eyes trace up the strands to the weaving of silver that rests on my head. It feels like it belongs there, no longer do I notice it. It's a part of me.

Just like she is.

I stare into my own eyes again, stunned by the admission, because it is a dangerous thing indeed.

Gregory wasn't lying. I thought he was, but no - he told me the truth for the first time in his life that day in temple. If I fall in love with Rachel, when I die, she will die too. The reverse is true as well. And yet, as I regard myself and remember back through the things I've said and done, I don't think I can keep myself from the inexorable pull that binds us together. I feel it, it is a constant that haunts me, that hangs over my shoulder and winds it's way around my heart.

As much as the idea of that frightens me, even more troubling is the way Gregory looks at her. His cold eyes measure and calculate her, they move with a purpose that makes my skin crawl, and she is so incredibly naive to it. For her boasts of strategy, she is blind to the war we already wage.

As the years have worn on, I've realized that it is important to keep my enemies close, so I do. I suffer at Gregory's hands, so that I know what he is thinking, where the evil of his mind takes him.

"I hear your mate is coming back." I didn't hear Gregory enter my bedchamber and I turn to him, concerned. I don't show him though, I regard him silently, as placid as a lake. I have learned how to hide everything from everyone; him especially.

"I look forward to seeing her again, do you?"

His words make my eyebrows rise, I can feel it on my face despite trying to be serene like my mother the Queen. I turn back to my mirror, adjusting the material at my shoulder.

"She is an irritant."

He gives me that lying loving smile I have known my whole life. "She is becoming the Queen she is destined to be. Certainly you have seen." He leans on the wall behind me, crossing his feet at the ankle, that is when I notice he is wearing soldier's boots in his reflection.

I go back to my dress. "We are all aging." I whisper before my thoughts tumble into the image in my mind I see. The dark sparkling eyes and bright smile. He interferes with my thoughts, his face appearing behind me. I look up at him, coldly.

"I remember when you wouldn't look me in the eye. Look how far you have come."

I say nothing, because I don't want him to know how much he still frightens me. I just hold his gaze, standing a little straighter, a little taller. I'm tall for my age and I use every shred of that to remind myself that I will someday be _his_ Queen.

"I'm not afraid of you anymore."

He crowds closer, careful not to actual touch me even though I can feel his evil regardless. "Good." He angles the word right into my ear, chilling me. "It makes it so much more fun for me then."

"Good." I cut a smile, cold and calculated.

His hand touches my wing, slicking the feathers through his grip. It disgusts me with it's intimacy and with how I swear I can imagine him snapping the bone in them like kindling in his hands, forever disfiguring me.

Maining me.

"She is truly beautiful. Don't you want her?"

I roll my eyes away from him as I jerk my wing from his hands. "She is as vile as you are, now, get out of my room so I can dress." I command, turning to him. From this close, his eyes bore into me with the same insane fire he always has.

Every time I see him he is that much bigger, that much more daunting in size. At a head and a half over me, he breathes down on me, his wings stretching to block everything behind him. "Vile?" He probes. "You think so?"

"Yes."

He laughs and just when I think he is leaving he spins back to grab me. I yelp out at the motion and push at him, but he catches my arms holding me still. His heavy breathes swirls my hair. I stare at his teeth, white and sharp in the afternoon light.

"Maybe I'll take your mate for my own then."

He can't ever know that his words make my heart hiccup in my chest. Make me furious and upset on a level I can't rationally understand or explain.

I heave him away, but he holds fast to me with inhuman strength. "Fine, have her. I don't want her, but get out of my room or I'll call for the guards."

"And then what?" He laughs.

"I'll have them throw you down to the dungeon." It is the only thing I can think of.

"To keep me there forever Quinn?" He smiles at me again, but I can tell he is pleased with himself. He enjoys getting a rise out of me and I would do anything to take that smile off his face.

"I'll have you executed if you ever touch me again." I want to say if he ever touches _her_, but I can't. It will give too much away.

He just smiles wider and for the first time it feels real and warm and loving. "I love you so, little sister. You make me so proud, because we are so much alike."

"I'm nothing like you."

His hands soften and he kisses my forehead. "Oh little sister, yes, you are."

I swallow lightly as he lets me go. "Then you know I would stop at nothing to get what I want."

He nods. "And I wouldn't either." He grins lecherously. "Your words imply, you haven't mated with her yet."

I blink at his statement, dizzy with the shift in his conversation. "What happens in my bedchamber isn't any of your concern." I leave it at that, hoping that he _thinks_ I'm boasting.

He smirks at me. "It's everyone's business, the kingdom's business." He laughs. "Our mother would have announced you as the Crown Princess and Rachel your Ascendant if that were the case."

"I will dictate the time and place for that announcement and take from Rachel what I want, when I want it."

The callousness in my tone is enough to make him laugh outright. He turns thoughtful. "So very like me, Quinn. I was thinking the same thing."

I keep my face still, keep my eyes fixed on the cinched material I can see as Gregory leaves me with the empty echo of his words' implication.

When he's gone, when he's left me alone to my misery I pace my bedchamber and end at the hearth. There I stare into the fire, watch it twist like I do every night, drawn into it by my thoughts.

I voice my thoughts. "If you so much as touch her. I will kill you."

The fire writhes, grows stronger, brighter in support of my thought. It makes me dizzy with how it moves, melting and churning before my gaze. And though my words are cruel and caustic, I mean them with everything in me in the purest way I can.

I don't know how long I stay there staring into the flames, thinking about all the things I would do to him if I could. It is long enough for me to confirm his words are valid. I have the potential to be as twisted as him.

And I hate him for showing me how deep the darkness can go.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: I fell asleep on the computer last night, so sorry I didn't put this out last night. Good news is that shit is about to get **real**. Enjoy, cause this is a catalyst moment, my friends. Well, one of many as we move toward the _first_ climax of the story.

A/N2: About the peen thing - ladies... this is a fantasy world. ;) I'm sure there are potions... and magic... right? /wink

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**Chapter 10**

**Rachel 1415**

How many turns has it been now? I lose track of the time. Three? Three solid warm seasons where I have wasted the days and nights here. Far away from everything I love, it gets harder every turn.

Every word between us is harder too because they aren't said by the same small girl they were said by before. No, the Princess is older now, and when I look at her I have trouble putting the two images together.

She looks like a woman now. Well, close to one. Where once there was long unruly hair, it is smooth and pulled back in beautiful knottings that send an infinite number of strands tumbling down her back and shoulders. She used to run when she thought I couldn't see her. Whether in excitement or joy, I'm not sure, but she doesn't run around now. She is controlled, steady. The princess is much taller than me now too, which I dislike because she uses that height to make herself superior. She acts like the fact that I have to incline my head a fraction more is somehow dictating of my place.

That I'm less worthy somehow.

As terrible as it is for me to think it, I would love nothing more than for someone - anyone, to put her in her place. If for no other reason than perhaps it would show her what it feels like for me. Because she is more than just mean now, she has a quiet kind of coldness that shuts me out and locks me away from warmth for days and days on end.

And though I fight with her, I do wish it were different.

I wish that when I pushed, she would bend instead of push back. I wish my wings wouldn't puff with the expectation of something cruel coming out of her mouth when she opened it. To be honest, she doesn't even have to say mean things anymore, because to my chagrin her revenge comes in the form of dreams that drive me positively mad about the future relationship we will have.

She doesn't need to torment me further than that.

Right now though, I see something very different from her than the stoic cold wall of disregard. I see a genuine interest in the practice she has with the Captain of the Guard. They are talking, and though I can occasionally hear their words, I watch instead.

Under a sun so bright it blinds I watch as she holds her sword out and they gesture at it. Quinn changes her stance, sliding her body into a different position. The Captain twists the angle of his weapon and when he moves it slowly toward her, she lights up.

I stare at her smile, at the understanding that how she is standing now will deflect the blade safely away.

And though her smile isn't for me, I enjoy it.

The light breeze pulls at the long strands of her hair and when it gets in her eyes and she pushes it back, I think she looks at me. I hope she does because her smile it still there.

And then she frowns and I know she certainly is looking at me now.

I pull my hair over my shoulder and look away. Instead of acknowledging her disdain, I watch the movement of the city right beyond the practice square. I see a few Winlean staring at me and I pull uncomfortably on the silk shift I wear. It is shorter than I'm used to, thinner. While it is seemingly functional in the heat around me, it makes me feel naked.

It makes me long for bath water to hide in because even that feels less revealing.

Now that my father no longer comes, I've done my best to accommodate Quinn in the only ways I seem to be able to. By wearing her fashion and letting the barely decent silken material cling to the curves of my body. And though it's uncomfortable to me, at least it has eliminated her words on my clothing. Though, I would give anything to be teased by her in something a little less vulnerable feeling.

I catch more Winlean staring at me and I think there is a good chance I might melt away in embarrassment if one more person looks at me.

I get up and wander to the shade near where Quinn is practicing, far away from strangers' eyes. It softens the harsh light in the sky and piercing gazes, and I sigh in relief. When I'm situated on the low wall beneath a rustling tree, I look up to see Quinn's eyes on me even though the captain is talking to her.

"If you hold it like this," he rattles the blade in her hand with his, and it draws her attention from me, "then you can easily press off and you open them to a rib blow.

She does the motion slowly. It is like a dance, a delicate blade-sharp dance, that slowly increases in tempo until Quinn and the Captain are moving at a normal speed.

I feel the clangs of steel in my heart and it makes me miss it so much. It feels like it's been forever since I was able to lift a blade, a prisoner in my role even more than I was before. I miss the way it felt in my hand, the control, the ease in which I could communicate through a weapon. It was mine, a part of me. I blink away the memory of my blade falling to the forest line.

Watching Quinn as she ducks under the blows from the refined looking Captain, stops my heart if for no other reason than it reminds me of what it felt like to move as she is.

She paths around the marble and with the swish of the blade she parries his attacks when he spins toward her. It makes her shine brighter than the sun, here in her pristine world.

Everything about her speaks of royalty, from her entitled temperament to the absolutely striking mold if her features. Her long honey colored hair is the morning sky, her eyes the color of the fields and the image of that in royal purple is perfect.

Breathtaking.

As much as it pains me to think it, she is attractive and I have no doubt in my mind she will become as beautiful as the Queen, just as the Inquisitor said. If anything, I think she may be even more magnificent, because there is a bit of the King that she carries and it makes her come together even better. Its in her eyes, in the shape of them and her nose. And when she smiles, it is just as endearing, spirited - or at least it think it would be if I could ever see it pointed at me.

There is something very elegant and yet primal about her too, and the two opposites catch my attention in everything she does, even when I don't want it to.

Such as now, while I sit so close I can see her sun-kissed skin shift with toned muscle, but it is rhythmic and mesmerizing, not choppy how most fighters move. And several nights ago, during the Harvest Festival, though she was stiff and short with me, she stopped to dance with people and she moved like a song.

Just thinking about it, makes it that much harder to catch my breath in this infernal heat and thin air.

She is a princess and a woman, a daughter and a ruler; she is so many things to so many people. I wish she was something to me, more than the cold bitter wall of discontent that settles in my stomach and the melt of beauty the next moment.

"Lady Rachel?"

It's the Captain's voice, and I startle from my thoughts.

"Yes?"

"Come here lady, this is something important to you as well."

I lick my lips nervously and my eyes go to Quinn. She isn't looking at me, she is staring at her sword mildly, obviously avoiding my gaze. I rise, and approach him.

When he puts the hot leather wrapped handle of the sword in my hand, I almost drop it just in sheer surprise.

"What's wrong, Lady?"

I don't know what to say as my father's voice resonates in my mind. "I don't know how to sword fight." I lie.

I think Quinn smiles slightly, but it's gone a moment later.

"A Thursian Winlean who cannot fight? I thought I heard different." He has a tone, one that indicates he knows _I_ know how. He shakes his head, handing me the blade without correction. "All the more reason to learn then, my lady, at the very least to honor your history. Besides, someday you might need to know how to for your and the princess' sake."

The blade is heavier than the ones I'm used to, but I use both hands to cradle it in my grip because that is something I would do if I _didn't_ know how to fight. I stare at it, unable to believe I can feel it again in my hand. I want to twist it around and learn it, but I wait silently letting it bobble just a little. I swear it makes Quinn smile, so I take that as payment for how silly I feel.

The Captain circles around to the side and stands between Quinn and I. "Now, Princess Quinn slowly cut in from the right. Lady Rachel I want you to hold your blade and raise it on an angle like this." He mimes the motion and the slackening of his wrists.

He's showing me a guard, the same one I used to teach the children of Emberlin.

Quinn does the motion, very slowly, just as he asked. It is slow enough that I'm surprised by it. I expected her to take a swing at me at full speed. When the blades finally connect, Quinn keeps hers moving, and it slides along mine, deflecting over my head.

"Now, wait!" The Captain barks and Quinn freezes in her place, holding the blade absolutely still. I stare at her stone-like position while my own hands bobble, but this time it's not acting. My hands are trembling. "Lady Rachel, can you see how twisted the princess is, how her flank is exposed?"

I hesitate my eyes to where he is gesturing, to the way she is stretched. The silk is pulled so tightly that I can see where her ribcage outlines a bow in her body, where the softness of her breasts is accented with every breath.

I can't speak so I just nod.

"This is where you would strike a moment after the blade passes yours." He gestures for me to do it.

"No." I hush, because I don't want to hurt her.

Quinn laughs. "He doesn't want you to do it with intent to kill. You can strike wide."

Of course I could, if my training would allow that. It's as hard for me to miss a target as it is for a new swordsworn to hit it. I swallow and firm my feet. When I drive the sword forward it's so far wide, it must look ridiculous.

I know I feel silly.

"Good." When the Captain looks at me, his gray blue eyes are sparkling and a smile is bounding on his lips. "Now do it again."

Quinn turns to me and I raise my blade again. Hers passes over mine slowly and once the scrape is gone I stab forward. This time Quinn spins away and her sword parrys the slow thrust of my weapon. I can tell she's proud of herself, so I play her game letting the clang of the metal shock me and with a gasp, I drop the blade.

Quinn shakes her head at me, but I don't miss the smile on her face. I think she enjoys more the fact she's superior in skill, and less the fact she startled me.

The Captain offers a very gruff laugh, ending our practice. "Tomorrow your Highnesses, we can begin again tomorrow, both of you." He gives Quinn a look before bowing sharply and excusing himself.

I blink after him, realizing how he addressed Quinn and I. It is still so surprising to my ears. When I look over at her, she is measuring me. With a bat of her lashes she blinks away her thoughts.

We stand in silence, in the silence I've become friends with between us. I clear my throat, looking down at the blade on the ground. "You are becoming very good, princess." When she doesn't say anything I continue. "I don't want to intrude on your practice, I will give him my thanks, but refrain."

"Thank you." She whispers almost so softly I can't hear it. She shifts her blade in her hand, still held in perfect alignment with where it was before. "You don't have to refrain. It is good to know. It is important while you travel, just in case."

My heart starts pounding because I think I hear genuine concern for my well being. Then, she laughs softly. "It doesn't look very good for me to let you travel without a way to protect yourself."

I should know by now that every nicety is to make her look better, to position her for a throne that is already in her hands. I almost want to say it, to tell her I wish she would just say something nice for the sake of saying it, but I firm my lips closed.

That is, until I can't anymore.

"Why will you not just be pleasant?"

Quinn regards me cooly. "I am being pleasant."

"Why can't you say something nice, just to say it?"

"Everything said has a reason, you should know this."

I frown at her. "Not everything has to have a reason."

She growls at the back of her throat and grabs the sword from the ground beside me. "Take it."

"Why?"

She thrusts it in my hand and as soon as she does she swings her sword at me in the same way she did earlier, but this time it is faster. I deflect it easily on instinct and impulse. "Everything has a reason Rachel. You don't lift your blade for fun, or for joy. You do it to defend yourself."

She strikes at me again as if hammering on the blade in my hand will teach me some kind of lesson I haven't already learned with the thousands of times a sword has been pounded in my grip. "Quinn, I'm not talking about-" the clang makes my arms vibrate, "this."

"Princess." I can tell she's distressed, I feel it. I feel it inside me in places I don't understand, but certainly in how much harder she is hitting the sword now. There is intent behind it. Anger.

Frustration.

She does it again, faster.

"You are talking about words. And words hold the greatest weight of all." When she strikes this time, I step backward and she swiftly closes the gap between us. She's close enough to taste and breathe. "All words come with reason."

I drop the sword in my hands to the side. Certainly she wouldn't hit me unarmed. "I just want you to try to be civil, to stop making me feel badly." I whisper it harshly so as not let my voice carry too far.

It crowds the air between us instead, pulling her face into a frown. "You don't have to care what I feel for you. You can have half the throne and do whatever it is that you yearn to do. You can travel the kingdom and meet people from the Fringe to the southern coast, go to Emberlin and be with your family. You don't have to stay here." She looks angry, but it isn't at me, its something else.

"Why are you angry?"

She blinks away the fire in her eyes, and all at once, she is as serene again. "Because I will be here, and everything that I want, I'll never have because of you."

I stare in shock at her. "Me?"

She looks relieved. "Yes."

"Why is this my fault?" My eyes search her face, and I say the first thing I can think of. "Is it because my name was on the tile? Because I am your mate? Are you angry that you have to share a crown with me and not someone else?"

I don't think in all the time we have spent arguing or trying to best one another have I ever seen Quinn quite so, torn. That is the word for it, the expression she has right now, torn and confused. When her words come, I'm not expecting them. "It's because the tiles existed in the first place and it is _my _duty to follow them, whether I want to or not."

I have nothing to say in response to that, because in many regards I feel the same way.

Quinn sighs, "I have no reason to say the things I don't say, which is why I don't say them."

"Being polite doesn't have to have reason other than reflection of your upbringing."

I thinks she almost laughs. "I'm a princess and someday I will be a Queen, no one will ever question where I come from."

And as much as it hurts me to say it, she left her flank open in the most literal of ways it can be without it being physical. "In order to be that Queen, you have to have me. So perhaps princess, that can be your reason."

"I _can't_ love you, not even for the throne, because-"

The silence is consuming between us. I can't hear the wind or the rustle of the leaves from the branches above us. However, all I can see is the way her eyes gloss and then with a breath and a whisper of wind the emotion is gone. As agonizing as those words are, its worse with how passionate she is about it, how deeply she feels about it. It is the fragmented image from my dreams, the passion I see twisted into opposition before me.

She is as passionate about not loving me as I wish she would be _for_ me.

I'm so deafened by my thoughts I don't hear, only feel the batter of wind from wings behind me. When Quinn's eyes go wide, I spin to see Gregory behind us.

"What won't you do for a throne?"

The way he says it, the coyness in his voice, is suddenly irritating to me. Though he has been nothing but polite, nice even, there is something about him I don't like. I don't know if it is in his eyes, or in the way he regards everything so coldly.

I back away from between them, because I don't trust Quinn at my back any more than him.

"Well?" He stares pointedly at her and when I see she isn't looking at him, I realize she fears him. Her face is turned toward his, but her eyes are bouncing everywhere but on him. I almost can't believe it and then I realize it must come with reason.

"There is nothing she wouldn't do, prince." I get his attention. "We were just discussing politics." Politics? I hold his gaze and take a very measured step backward, so he turns a little more away from Quinn.

"And what do little girls like you two know about politics?" He asks plainly. Then he laughs. "Forgive me, I just find it so funny." He waves his hand before him like he is fanning away the stench of his own pleasure.

"Why?" I question.

When I see Quinn catch my eyes from behind him and gesture for me to leave, I blink at her blankly. Is she telling me to leave?

"Well, firstly because if you can't speak with your mate without being so overt," he shifts back toward Quinn, "then I doubt your political maneuverings would be much better."

I feel threatened when he slides in beside Quinn and thumps a heavy arm on her shoulder. I didn't realize how big he was, until he stands beside her and makes her look like she is childlike. She turns her face from him as he leans in close. "Tell me Quinn, what won't you do?"

It is all very slow and languid when he lifts his hand and points at me. I stare at his finger, at the way it is angling right at my face. "Is _that _what you object to?" He brays in laughter and I watch his breath move her hair.

Her eyes flash from beneath the strands. I almost don't believe it when she turns to him and presses his arm away, she doesn't look afraid anymore. "No. This is none of your concern brother."

He frowns at her and his eyes roll from the tips of her wings to her feet, where they stop on the sword I dropped. "Practicing?"

When Quinn's whole body tightens, I'm immediately threatened. She's afraid and - I realize what it is, bracing herself. I have to do something. "Gregory! Can you show me the palace?"

As he bends over to retrieve the weapon I was holding and I see Quinn's eyes widen in desperation and her mouth cuts out the most frightening silent words I've ever seen.

_Fly away._

"No, no touring right now." My hands start trembling as he hefts the weapon. "I haven't practiced with my sister for a very long time. Not since, well, since you." He flashes the blade at me and it's point ends so close to my face, I feel the wind of it.

He crumbles in laughter again.

"Quinn let's go." I say quickly, but his hand clamps on her shoulder, keeping her.

"No."

The resignation I see in Quinn's face scares me more than the smile I see in his. I don't understand why she won't run away. Why won't she tear out of his hands?

When he shrieks the blade to just before Quinn's neck, she flinches and he laughs. "So, tell me now, what will you not do for a throne? For the throne that is _destined_ for you? For the throne that was _given_ to you by a Goddess?"

He smirks as his eyes go from her, to me and then back. "Two Queens on the throne." He shakes his head with a laugh. "As your brother, I must counsel you on something very important, because the Queen and King will never tell you, and certainly not your ancient Inquisitor."

He looks right at me. "In a few turns Quinn, she can be a tool for your pleasure." He bends his face lower until his lips are pressed against her ear, "you can drink a vial from the apothecary, and take anything you want from her body because you are a princess and it is your right. I can only imagine how glorious that will be with those eyes and all that dark hair."

"Don't be disgusting." Quinn whispers, her eyes ghosting over me.

"I could demonstrate what wonders you have the right to take. Teach you how to use the phallus you would have. As a good brother it is the least I could do."

He laughs again and his implication turns my stomach. She turns to him, so close I swallow uncomfortably as her head inclines to his.

"Enough."

And then I realize she is genuinely distressed about his idle words. I don't understand why it's those words that build her anger, she has no care for me, but they do.

"I give you advice like this as a good brother should."

Quinn scoffs, "It is with good reason the Goddess withholds everything from you."

I watch his grip on her tighten until his fingers are white, "and tell me, please - give me a reason."

And though I know it is bait, and though she _must _know it, she says it anyway.

"Because you're evil and void of kindness, and you don't deserve _anything_."

"Oh, really?" He lets her go, and then thumbs over the blade in his hands. When he lifts his eyes to me, he has a sick smile on his face.

"Quite sharp."

When he strikes out at Quinn, it is so fast I almost don't see it. It cleaves at her and she slides away from the wall as his blade hits the marble with enough force to send shards exploding in a circle. The pieces pelt me and I shield my face from it as a scream winds up in the back of my throat. I lower my hand just in time to see Quinn dive under a practice rack and the blade slice through the edge in a burst of wood. I scramble after them, grabbing a fallen sword as I go.

"Leave her alone!" I've never been so afraid in my life and I open my wings and fly toward them, closing the distance.

Quinn raises her weapon and moves just as fast as him blocking his attacks, far faster than she moved with the Captain and I, faster than I imagined she could move. His back is open to me, exposed.

I tighten my hand on my weapon. It would be so easy to kill him, right here. Right now. I want to, but I can't. There is no way I could explain away the killing of the prince.

But then he kicks her, I can't even believe it. It knocks her back against one of the banner poles. I hear her heave a breath, making a sound that reminds me of a sack of flour being dropped. Her head hits the wood sickeningly a moment later sending her eyes rolling back into her head.

"Leave her alone, by the Goddess! Leave her be!"

I get my hand on his back and pull at his clothing, claw at the back of his neck in desperation. He shakes me loose with a look that is maniacal. And this time his words are not idle in the least. "I'll remind you of _your_ place when I'm done with her."

"Perhaps it's time for you to be reminded." I whisper harshly, my hands rattling with fury.

My interruption gives Quinn enough time to gather her wits and she moves away, using the banner to protect herself. Gregory glances at her and then his eyes come back to me. "Who will do the reminding then? Your mate? The coward?"

I feel my hackles rise. "I will."

"Good."

He comes at me and though it looks like he is growling fury at me, the only thing I hear is Quinn's voice and words. They are the sweetest thing I've ever heard. "No, not my mate."

It renews me.

I step to the side, his sword flashing out, and I parry the shot easily. Really, his form is terrible. He comes back, and I deflect his blow, slicing a gap in the silk he wears. I laugh when he looks up from inspecting it.

"You can fight." He says wonderously.

"Yes, I can."

Quinn's eyes dart over me, I can feel them.

"I'll stop being so nice then."

"Please. It's difficult being so kind to you as well."

He hits my sword, hard - sending a shockwave up my arm until it makes my shoulder ache. I turn, escaping his heavy blows, as they rain down on the marble behind me. I'm by no means as strong as him and while I would love to prove I'm better, I don't have to do it by absorbing blows like that.

The trick, in all things not just swordfighting, is to wear your opponent down.

I hear a heavy clang of weapons, and stop short, turning to see Quinn engaging him. What is she doing? "Quinn!"

Gregory laughs, "actions I suppose speak louder than words."

That's when I realized that my avoidance must have looked like I was retreating to Quinn, and she interceded for me.

To protect me.

Because he is right, actions do speak louder.

And she cares.

When he pushes her roughly and as she stumbles backward, I drive forward. Gregory has his blade raised, and as it comes down at her, I use my own to twist his from his hands. I disarm him, and instant before he can hit her with his weapon. He growls in frustration, shoving me away.

Unarmed, Quinn could easily kill him and I want her to, my own bloodlust thick and disorienting. I regain my footing and growl low and angry. I half expect her to lash back out at him for everything he has done, and with the clear intent he has been attacking her in, but she doesn't.

Instead, she just looks at me. I have no idea what is going through her mind, but she holds up her hands to him, letting the sword in her grip slack passively.

"Gregory, I yield." She is breathless, her body trembling from what I can imagine is strain from absorbing his attacks. "Please. You have proven your better, I just ask you leave _us _alone."

Gregory retrieves his weapon and flashes the blade at her, knocking the sword around in her hand. "Get it back up. I'm not through yet."

"No, I'm done."

"Oh, yes, you are." His voice is different, like a monster as he pulls back and stabs right for the center of her chest unprovoked. Quinn tightens her hand, knuckles white on the sword handle. She parries the blow, but as she backs away, his wrist brings the blade toward her.

I move forward to intercept it, but it catches her, it must because though she is obscured behind Gregory I hear her yelp painfully.

I don't know where she has been struck. I don't care if he is going to do it again. I run headlong between them and as Gregory pulls his sword back again, I drag my sword blade down the side of his face, drawing a ribbon of blood.

Gregory's hand covers the wound I've inflicted, his eyes wide. "You cut me."

My heart is pounding, but Quinn's hand on back pushes my words out firm and unafraid. "I will take you apart a piece at a time if you lift a blade to her again."

He stares at the weapon in his hand then, like he can't believe he is holding it. He drops it with a clatter to the marble and before I can say anything more he backs away before launching into the air.

I watch him go, until Quinn's hand clenches on my arm. When I look back, she has a hand to her side and between her fingers and the torn silk, I watch as blood, more red than I have ever seen, drips over the cream of her skin. It turns the purple shift she wears the color of mud over the span of her hip.

I move commanded by a force much higher than my own will and the next thing I know, I'm a breath away from her, my hands trying to cover the place where the blood is coming from. I can feel her free hand flexing on my shoulder and I'm not sure if it is pulling me nearer or pushing me away.

"Oh Quinn! Let me see!" I plead with her and her eyes are on me, wide and afraid. I don't understand why they look so scared.

I pry her fingers back and glance down. It's a thin cut, shallow, but certainly deep enough to scar. It curves from her navel to the bony point of her hip.

When I realize I'm staring at the narrow arch of her pelvis, I put my hands back and lift my eyes.

"We have to get you to the healer." I usher quickly. "Can you walk?"

"Yes." She licks her lips and grits her teeth.

I feel a lump building in my throat, because it feels like it is my fault. "I'm so sorry Quinn. So sorry."

"Enough Rachel, I'll be fine."

That is when I realize I'm closer to her than I have been since we were bound. I'm close enough to see the glimmer of softness of those cool eyes, taste her breath again. And further down, I see the small silver scars along her arms, a nick at her clavicle that looks like it was once bone deep and a long nearly invisible line that runs down the length of her shoulder and disappears down the front of her shift.

There are so many, so many reminders from battles she most likely had no reason to fight, just like this one. With the way the Captain was practicing so gently with her, I'm certain I know who has drawn her blood over and over.

"What has your brother done to you?" I whisper in horror, hesitantly reaching out to touch them.

"He has been teaching me that everything has a reason, just as I told you." She smiles sadly, but her voice and words are strong, just like the Queen she is destined to become.

"He will never touch you again, I swear it."

She swallows hard, staring at me. "Better me than you."


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I really want to get to the part where they hook up this weekend, but I don't think I'll be able to without inspiration. /wink This is like tantric writing, seriously - ugh. Two more chapters... Let me know what you think of this one, since - yeah. It twists the story on it's ear and further develops Faberry awesomeness.

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**Chapter 11**

**Quinn 1416**

I stand on a parapet overlooking the city below. The seasons have turned. Where bare frozen marble has stretched across the courtyard for an endless amount of time, now warmth rains. The quiet of the palace is disrupted again with Rachel's presence and just the thought of it brings a conflicted smile to my face.

She is the shepherd of summer; she brings the steady sunlight drawing the days so long that the horizon burns at night and later in her visit she ushers in the harvest turning the fields gold. I'm grateful for it as so many others are too.

But my reasons are different.

I'm in love with her.

I swallow hesitantly, affixing my eyes to the horizon. I love her despite her being so very difficult to manage, and then wonderful in the next moment. So protective and yet unremitting in her displays of prowess. She is every dichotomy I yearn for, and last turn, when she protected me - that had done it, broken the last defense I could muster.

I can't deny it anymore.

I love her.

And it doesn't matter anymore that she enters my world again as a stranger to me, a stranger my heart forces me to relearn again while she makes a mess of my life in the best of ways. For the briefest of moments, I wish for her to never leave.

But it isn't safe yet.

Gregory.

I frown into the afternoon light. His time is coming.

The moment I become Queen, my first order will be to have him killed in his sleep. But I can't do it now, despite wanting to. There is a dirty history of fratricide in our family and he has too much sway with the public; his charisma too great to fend off the turn in public opinion should I conspire to seek my revenge too early.

No, I will have to bide my time and wait.

For now at least, I can be grateful he is across the kingdom, by the Archasic Mountains. Without his eyes over me, I can allow myself to embrace a little of the feelings I feel. Just a little though, enough to keep any other watchful eyes unaware of changes.

"Princess?" It's my mate speaking and I smile without turning from the view. I wonder idly if Gregory took the assignment because he was too afraid to see her again. She does cut such an intimidating image, as elegant and poised as she is in her deep green gown.

I snicker to myself. "I'm here, my lady."

Her footfalls slow for a moment at my address of her, and then propel her forward following my voice. "I have been looking for you."

I narrow my eyes, focusing on the far off dust cloud wafting from the fields below the city. "I have been here."

She takes up the space beside me and I glance at her profile. She is so beautiful, exotic, soft and yet so very commanding in her own right. When she looks at me dusted in golden light, I look away because in her face I see such warmth, it makes it hard to breathe.

"What are you doing up here, princess?" She asks softly, her eyes fixing on the side of my face. I don't answer her, not really, because I don't know why I'm up here keeping my distance when all I want is to pull her into my arms.

I remind myself it is to protect her, so when Gregory does come back, she still isn't a threat. I don't know who I can trust, even when he is gone.

I swallow as a group of Winlean fly past us on their way to the fields below. They salute at us and I become very aware of how we must look. We must look like a very happy mated pair. I raise my hand at them, and when I feel Rachel mirror the motion beside me, it dizzies me with how quickly I feel love for her.

When they turn away, I shift putting more distance between her and I.

It doesn't feel like enough, it will never be far enough away to stop the furious rip of adoration I feel.

"What are you thinking Princess?"

"Nothing, lady."

It is so difficult to master this scale without letting it tip. Being warm enough to her that the people think we are happy and in love, yet, keep enough distance that Gregory thinks we are at odds and only pretending to be civil. It feels like an endless maze of mirrored glass that twists and confused me.

Everything is a twist, everything; everywhere I look. It's nothing but a blistering current of highs and lows. My emotion, my mood, my desires. I don't even know myself anymore.

And even the most benign thing isn't safe for me when it comes to her.

I can't even keep my thoughts straight, because there are the obvious physical things that pull at my attention. That her silken shifts wraps tighter around her hips and breasts, that her legs aren't as thin as they were before. That she is every bit the woman I somehow knew she would grow into.

That is expected; what isn't expected is that I notice to the point of insanity. I notice the way her body moves, how when we practice with swords and the Captain tells me to look at her, I do.

But secretly, it is differently than before.

I notice the way her hands move when she speaks, how her eyes smile and lips form a perfect diamond between them. I notice how when we stand beside one another, she is the perfect size to fit in my embrace. How when she inclines her head to me, her hair tumbles endlessly.

I'm not so dense that I don't realize that part of the change I see in her is because of myself changing as well. I'm not naive.

I know what urges are, desires. I feel them tumble through me and it makes it difficult to focus on anything because she does so many things that catch my attention in that regard. She does it without trying and without care because truly, she is stunning.

Distance becomes a very beneficial ally to me if for no other reason than all the brightness I see in her, I want to keep intact.

Then there are other things, deeper things that are harder to keep at bay. Things that distance doesn't fix because it is always with me. It is always on my mind, even when she is far away.

That is how I know I'm in love with her.

And further still, I've never had someone protect me. That isn't to say that the soldiers of my kingdom wouldn't lay down their life for me, but its different with her. She is a young woman, my mate, and though she doesn't know how dangerous Gregory can be, or at least she didn't until our last turn together, it doesn't devalue what she was willing to do.

It's a positively odd sensation to feel protection from her, after having spent my life face first in the trouble and the violence of a kingdom. To have learned about our bloody history and grown in a home that withstands revolution because of the responsibility my mother shoulders has made me cold.

How could it not, knowing it is a responsibility I will have to shoulder as well? The melt of Rachel's softness makes me feel off balance because it feels good and so very bad at the same time.

Because I need it and her, more than I need air to breathe. And sometimes, I realize I need it more than my throne.

When I think that, I give her a final glance and I fly away because it's all too overwhelming.

Her voice rings out after me, "where are you going?"

When I hear the whistle behind me, I'm surprised to look back and find Rachel close behind. She doesn't typically follow me, so the fact she is unnerves me. I need my distance and space so I frown and catch a different current, angling down toward the city square.

"Princess? Why won't you answer me?"

She still follows, and it takes every single ounce of my patience to not say something pointed that will deter her. Prying ears are everywhere, so I bite my tongue. Instead, I turn into the current and open my wings. The drag slows me enough to send her streaming past me before she too slows. However, I'm already gone, catching a loft and racing upward into the blistering clear sky. I don't stop until I'm breathless and my city is small before me.

The air is thin, I feel it in how even as I breathe my body buzzes. This is one place she can't go, where her wings can't take her. I learned that turns ago, because Emberlin is so much lower than Winland.

I look for her below, look for where she has stopped to look up at me just as she has done before.

When a shadow falls over me, I look up and to my horror she is there. There is a laugh on her lips that is so self-glorifying, it makes me laugh despite myself. "I don't want you to follow me. I wish to be alone."

She smirks, "I can fly anywhere I want, princess."

It is an obvious challenge, one she is silly to issue. I glance down and dive.

I can hear her a breath behind me, hear the scream of air between her tucked feathers as she follows in my trail. I stare straight ahead as the city grows and then blurs because I'm moving so quickly. Tears well up over my eyelids and I blink them away. The streets outline, the people too. I avoid the city square and angle toward the mouth of an alleyway.

I hear Rachel call out behind me. "Quinn, no!"

"This is _my_ city!" I scream it.

I mean it. But even as I say it, it rings hollow in my ears and heart.

Aiming for where the ground and strung festival banners shadow the entrance, I pull up at the last moment and pass between them with barely enough clearance to breathe. I'm so close to hitting the marble around me that Rachel cries out. It isn't luck though, it's because this is mine and I know this city better than anyone.

I look back as she dwarfs and then disappears, left behind by my speed. I arc upward, a very uncharacteristic whoop of excitement on my lip, moving from the shadows into the sunlight.

I pass over the secondary wall of the city and land lightly atop the last defense of Winland. From here, I look out over the golden carpet of fields stretching all the way to the Great Stone Face. Below, the harvesters, massive monoliths of stone and wood churn chaff in the air, littering the valley in a shimmering dust cloud.

I feel a tickle on my wings and I turn to see Rachel barreling toward me. A growl grinds the back of my throat, because I have no doubt this is how it will always be. Her, never satisfied until she has broken down every last bastion of solitude I cling to.

She shoots past me, her outcry rattling the air as surely as her wings buffet dust into my eyes when she passes dangerously close. "I could win in a flat race!"

I narrow my eyes after her, watching as she arches backward into an inverted dive to the ground below.

I'm not allowed to leave, but with a glance over my shoulder I take off after her. I'm the Princess, I can go if I want. And I want to, so I can wipe that satisfied smile off her face.

She is ahead of me when we level out and I can hear the torn laughter cut away from her and stitch back over me. I realize I might not be able to catch her and it spikes my competitive spirit. I push harder, faster, using my arms to pull myself forward. She glances back, and I'm close enough to read surprise in eyes as burnished as the grasslands she superimposes on. She dodges with a very girlish scream and it has me laughing, if only because it's something I never expected from her.

When she's in arms reach and I get close enough to touch her, and I do, twisting my hand around her ankle firmly. I hear the surprised shriek and though I have enough leverage to pull her back and pass her, I don't.

I don't want to hurt her, so I let her go instead.

She smiles back at me and I know she realizes I could have torn her out of the sky. So she slows a little and reaches down with fingers splayed to touch the wheat, sending a glittering trail to the side of us. It shines before we leave it behind and I do it too, feeling the whip against my hands. When she looks at me, I smile at her from the sheer exhilaration of it all and she falls in beside me.

"Your first time outside the city?"

I nod. "My mother would be upset if she found out."

Rachel's eyes smile at me. "I won't tell." She mimes a motion crossing her heart and turns away from me. I follow her, twisting so that I can see Winland for the first time from this view. I lap the city beside Rachel as my jaw hangs slack.

Despite having read all about travelers who have arrived at the city, I cannot believe the image of it as it hangs in the sky beside me. The spires of the palace shoot up and puncture the sky, the clouds that guard the base, swirl thick with moisture. Even the remains of the ground it was torn from looks like a fat dagger blade pointing to the world. My home is magnificent and it makes my heart hurt because it will be mine.

Ours.

"I remember seeing it for the first time." Rachel intones as she creates enough drag to stop and drop to the dirt between the rows of wheat.

I follow a beat behind her, touching the earth of my future kingdom for the first time. I stare down at the warm hard packed dirt and just _feel_ it under my feet.

"What do you remember?" I ask slowly, lifting my gaze to the sky above me and the massive city that takes up my whole vision.

"I remember thinking that I couldn't believe this would someday be mine."

Her words stop my heart, and It makes it difficult to breathe. I turn to regard her and the cool gaze she wears. "And now, when you see it?"

"It makes me sad."

I try to stay my expression, but I feel my face twist anyway. "Why?"

She holds my eyes. "The actual question should be, how not?"

I cross my arms as I regard her and then the splendor in the sky. "I'm humbled because I never knew how spectacular it was."

"Sometimes the things closest to us are the ones we don't see value in."

I feel pained by the implication of her words. I level my gaze at her and open my mouth to comment, until a sound like thunder comes to my ears and it silences me. I look up at the clear sky at the same time Rachel does. My eyes search.

It isn't thunder.

"Odd."

"Yes, very."

I stare at her as the sound rises across the valley again, like the very earth itself is tearing apart.

"Rachel?" My voice raises over the sound and then the tremor that rattles the dirt under me steals the tone from my voice.

"Quinn?" Rachel reaches out and puts a hand on my arm, pulling me closer.

I grab to her and we hold each other upright. There is something about the unstable earth that tugs a pin loose on my instincts. My hands shake as a charge of something rolls through me. I'm not afraid necessarily, just ready. I can see the pooling of dread in Rachel's eyes.

My gaze razors to the left, where the sound is coming from. My heart stops fast enough to make everything numb. At the edge of my vision, Rachel turns as well. I think I hear her exclaim something, but I don't register it as at the far side of the valley, on the overlook by the Great Stone Face, the wall crumbles away.

It isn't just the crumbling of the massive wall, but the speck of darkness, hurling through the air that chokes me silent. In shock, I don't understand what is happening, until it grows dark and massive.

I realize it's a tether to the city whipping through the air toward us.

It's coming right for us.

I think I scream out as the massive metal structure, collides with a guard tower a stone's throw away from us. The two structures meeting in a roar, that deafens. The panic I feel chokes a desperate sound from my throat as the tower collapses in slow motion and the tether tears a jagged screaming line through the field behind us.

I don't believe it when I see a red swirling cloud crest over the wheat and billow toward us. I can't move, I can't breathe. I stand slack jawed and silent as a wave of crimson soundlessly races forward. It consumes the sky, the field, and swallows whole everything in it's path.

When I realize Rachel and I will be caught in it my voice comes stronger than I thought it could be. I sound just like my mother. "Rachel! Hold tightly!"

I pull her down with me and cover her as dust and debris so thick it feels like water, consumes everything. I hide my face in the crevasse of her neck and shoulder, pressing her head to my chest. The granules peck my skin painfully and I fan my wings around her.

"No, Quinn!" Her hands grapple for purchase and with a strength I didn't know she had, she forces me to the dirt beneath her as the blackness steals the sunlight. Curled beneath her, I'm helpless to do anything other than hold to her, and wait.

When the roar dies, I choke on the dust as it coats my mouth and works it's way into my eyes. I can only see the outline of Rachel over me. "Are you okay?"

She eases back and I stand on shaking knees. Then - all I hear is screaming. Rachel's is the only voice I can make out as I help her to her feet.

"The tower is down!"

"The city!" I scream it, staring up, checking to be certain Winland hasn't moved.

"Safe for now!" I stare at her numbly, at how her whole body is painted in a layer of dirt so thick I can't make out anything other than her eyes.

They are wide, "By the Goddess, the people!"

"Go!"

I take off after her as she turns and runs. The rows of crops tear at me and I can't get enough clearance to take off. My heart hammers, my breath races from my mouth. Now that we are closer, the screams make my head spin with fear. For as much talk as I have, for all the bravado, I'm afraid.

Rachel makes it to the tower first, myself a step behind and the scene that assaults my gaze might as well be a war. The wall of dirt that hangs in the air, the screaming, the confusion. It is like the battles I've studied, the gruesome horrors that haunted my dreams as a child.

And despite how utterly confused and disoriented I am, I hear Rachel's voice ring out in the choking cloud. "Search the debris! Find the wounded!"

It shocks me to reality, to my position as I realize people are looking to me for command. "You! Find the Inquisitor and notify the Queen and King!" I gesture toward where I can see people digging, tearing at the ground for clearance under the rubble. "The rest of you, hurry the search!"

As beautiful as Rachel is, she is infinitely more so when she drops to her knees and pries at the rock with her bare hands.

I don't even believe it when a slab slips and a bloodied hand is exposed. There is a scream on Rachel's lips when she sees it and her hand twists with foreign fingers.

Our laws be damned.

"Here! Someone is here!"

I move in under the plea in her tone and flanked by my people, we pull at the stone shards until we can't anymore, until a massive stone stops our progress. I stare at it, at the angle and size until my eyes fall to Rachel. She is sitting in the dirt, her hand wrapped in the injured man's. She is saying something, her face is covered in dirt, lips the same, so it makes it hard to see the words form.

I move closer and listen to her voice, "I am here, there is nothing to be afraid of."

And I believe her.

My gaze tears up when I hear the whistle of the wind, toward to where the royal guard, a thousand strong, flood the fields from above. They are a dazzle of brightness, their armor clanking as they clear stones. When they slide in beside Rachel and brace against the stone, I feel my throat choke tightly at the image of it.

She lets go then as they heave, and the groan of the slab sliding is the loudest sound in the world. My eyes focus on the widening crack between the flat boulder and the rock below and I wait. I don't know what I'm waiting for.

A soldier reaches for the protruding hand and the boulder lurches sickeningly and he snaps his hand back.

"We're losing it!"

I hear the scream ring out as the stone trembles and though I think about doing so many things, I stand still and watch in horror.

There have been an endless amount of times that I have felt unworthy of Rachel. From the very moment we met, until now, she has proven time and time again that she is the only Queen this kingdom needs. It is in this moment though, that I know it without a doubt because even as I stand frozen I can see her reaching.

It's all slow motion, like swimming underwater. Like a dream.

She reaches forward without fear, without thought, into the darkness. Her fingers and sculpted hands disappear into the blackness and then her head disappears beneath it. A rip of lightning shoots through me and when I see the stone shift, I scream her name.

I scream it like it is the last word that will ever leave my mouth.

Because I can't lose the woman I love.

Ever.

When she appears from beneath the stone with a grimace on her face, her teeth shining in the muted sunlight from the strain, I can't believe she is pulling him free. I watch the young boys body slide out as the stone snaps closed behind him like angry jaws.

And no one moves.

My feet are frozen because the sputtering, panting woman before me is more of a Queen, more of a leader than my mother will _ever _be.

More than I could ever _hope _to be.

She is better than all of us.

There are so many things I feel as I walk toward her. It is all a collision within me, but it takes the people around us to give statement to the things I cannot say. And like me, they do it without words.

The bow to her as I help her to her feet. The people who bow _only_ to my mother, take a knee to the woman leaning against me. And she doesn't see it, because that is who she is. She is looking at the young boy. And when I feel her wings move and accommodate herself closer to me for support, I know something is wrong.

"Get him aid, hurry." She says it breathlessly.

The soldiers do as she commands, picking him up like a bag of nothingness and bowing to Rachel before leaving.

"Rachel?"

She stops my words with a hand on my arm.

When my teacher, my friend, lands before us I'm relieved to see him. His eyes are settled on Rachel. I look back at her, at the serenity of her expression despite the fact she can't stand without me beside her.

"If he lives, he will lose that hand."

The words crash over me and are so very ill placed in juxtaposition to what I just witnessed. Rachel looks back in horror and her wings bristle in the fury I know that writhes beneath her calm facade.

"No, he will not."

"Yes," he inclines his head at her. "There is a lesson to be learned in everything."

She turns her face away from him.

I can see people stop to listen to my the Inquisitor's words as he looks to me. "I will not be here forever Princess. Someday you will be a Queen, you must understand law is important even more so that in times like this." When I stare into the shadow beneath his cowl, I look for the jesting smile I expect. His face is void of the comfort I yearn for.

It is the first time I'm torn with what duty I should hold. I catch Rachel's eyes when she looks at me. I see the determination in her eyes, I also read her expression for the first time. It's uncanny, the clarity. How I know where it is that I'm supposed to stand and how deeply she hopes I know as well.

For the first time in my life I feel pride in doing something I shouldn't when I help Rachel past the watching crowd. I narrow my eyes at the hooded form I no longer know while I hold hands that are no longer strangers.

"It is your law, not _ours_. And no one will suffer under some archaic diatribe as long as we stand together."

And I swear I see him smile before I lead Rachel away at my side, because he just taught me the last lesson I needed to learn.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Oh don't worry - Quinn's brother is the tip of the iceberg in this story... his time has almost run out. He'll be getting his in spades, I promise. I'm gonna fillet that son of a bitch as soon as I get the chance. ;)

He still has a few more purposes, though - so not yet.

And damn... one chapter away from where I wanted to get to, oh well. Hopefully this is a little fun for all of you, and builds the secondary storyline a little more. Let me know.

* * *

**Chapter 12**

**Rachel 1416**

It was sabotage.

The word hangs in the throne room after the Queen says it, like the stench of the dead. And there were so many, fifty-two in total that lost their lives to the shattering of the rock beneath the binding tether.

The funeral pyres have been going for days, and the clouds of acrid smoke feel like they are woven into the very fiber of my being. The taste of it hangs in my mouth as the loss of them hangs heavy in my heart.

I stare at Quinn, where she stands to the right of the Queen in the Ivory Seat. She still bears the marks of the debris, the dottings of wounds over her arms and the side of her face where the stone pelted her hard enough to break the skin.

I still bear the wounds as well, the muscles in my side torn. I can't fly, not right now, not for a few weeks more at the very least. And I'm cut as well, but I don't feel the pain when I think about those hurt much worse than me.

"I deem your act to be that of treachery, and in line with that - you have been sentenced to death by expulsion from the city."

I swallow hard, as the room explodes in agreement, cheering, as the guard removes the prisoners. I follow them with my eyes until I can no longer see them. It take a moment for me to realize that one of them is a Thursian.

When the Queen's eyes sweep over the room, they pause on me for a moment, and then continue.

I don't know why I feel so nervous when she looks at me. She is nothing but warm and loving to me, it must be because of the words she spoke.

When she inhales to speak again, the room goes silent. "Inquisitor, is there anything additional today?"

"No, my Queen."

"Thank you." She rises at the same speed the entire throne room kneels. I stare at the floor, listening to the swish of first her robes and then Quinn's as my mate follows in her wake. As the Queen makes her way past where I'm knelt down, she speaks. "Lady Rachel, come with me."

I nod, rising. "Yes, my Queen."

I follow beside Quinn, glancing at her for the briefest of moments. Her eyebrows shift very subtly as her eyes soften; however, that is the totality of change in her. I don't know what it was I was expecting from her, what I want exactly.

I busy myself with my thoughts on Quinn to avoid the nervous rush I feel since the Queen has just pulled me from the throne room.

I think I want what it felt like after the incident at the tower. I try to remember how surprising it was to have Quinn walk with me until I couldn't go any further. Until the pain was too much and I had to stop. I shamelessly memorized it, the way she knelt beside me and held me close, asking how I was, if there was anything she could do.

And even more surprising was that she stayed with me until the guards found us. She didn't move, didn't speak, just kept arms tucked in support of me until I could be brought back to Winland.

Despite the breathless pain, it was most likely the best I had ever felt. There isn't anything that can compare with being held in the arms of someone you love.

We burst into the palace hallway beyond the throne room and no sooner do the doors shut, that the Queen turns.

"Lady Rachel, are you aware of any dissent in the Thursian province?"

Her question literally puts a trickle of cold down my spine. "No, your highness."

"I didn't think so, but it trouble me that a Thursian took part in this."

I don't know what to say. Quinn speaks then, for me - and I thank the Goddess for it. "It is no more troubling than the fact that the other two were Midlandians."

"But perception and reality are two different things. To have someone _different_ attack the capital city creates civil unrest." She sighs heavily. "And now, because of tradition and the old way, I have sentenced three young men to death in a horribly brutal way."

I don't know why I think it, but I remember the young man I pulled from the rubble. "My Queen?"

"Yes?"

"Did the young man we saved from the tower collapse lose his hand?"

The Queen arches her brow at me, exactly like Quinn does. "No, what you and Quinn speak in public stands. I see no reason to undermine your future rule, in that circumstance." The Queen continues walking, and Quinn and I follow dutily.

When the guards open one of the anti chambers near the throne room, I come to a stop. I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't the King and the Inquisitor waiting for us. They stop speaking until the door is closed.

Then everything explodes again in a flurry of words.

"Rhainn, this is just a catastrophe."

"They don't know how three men did it, my Queen."

"It shouldn't have happened, it's impossible."

"I realize this." The Queen responds, but I'm at a loss, trying to follow the conversation.

I glance at Quinn and she too, looks numb.

I almost don't see the Inquisitor motioning for me, but I do and approach the table he is positioned at. I feel Quinn slide in beside me as we stare down at maps and what look like drawings with numbers by them. Measurements.

They are schematics. I remember ones similar near the forges in Emberlin for Thursian swords.

"What do you see?" He asks.

"Schematics." I whisper.

"Of the tether system." Quinn adds.

"Yes. And a map of the capital." The Inquisitor points to it. "Winland has shifted in the valley by a full breadth, which means the fields that once got water from the clouds around it's base, no longer do. We have several issues at hand now, the primary being how are we going to feed the people this Winter? I'm putting the two of you to work on that while we sort out everything else."

I blink at him. "Us?"

He frowns at me. "I trust you no longer have a war between the two of you."

"No, I-" I don't know what I'm saying, because he can't actually mean that Quinn and I have to find a way to feed an entire kingdom. "You want us to be responsible for the welfare of the kingdom?"

He actually smiles. "How is this any different than the pledge you made four years ago, or the crown you've worn since?"

And he leaves it at that.

* * *

But there is so much more to discover.

The tether system was meant to withstand ballista attacks, an invading army. The fact that three young men were able to destroy it doesn't make sense. It puts an uneasy silence around the palace, the city even.

As if that isn't enough, the tether is irreparable. Winland has shifted too far to be anchored back again. Though it's not my home, it feels like something has been uprooted and destroyed. It makes me uncomfortable, violated in some indescribable way. It bothers me even more when I see Quinn looking out over the walls, and her eyes glitter with unshed misery.

Worse still is that I have to pretend that nothing is wrong. That I'm not in a panic over the discussions I've had with Quinn over the past few days. There isn't enough time to do half the things that would provide the necessary solution. And by our calculations, easily half the grain we normally collect will be void for two turns. Coupled with the collapse itself and the damage done by the tether itself, we lost enough harvesters to empty the storage reserves and then some.

It is quite possible that people will starve this winter; yet, I can't breathe a word of it. I have to be resolute in my silence.

It's so harrowing that Gregory returned and I didn't even notice him. He doesn't matter, not when a hundred thousand people hang in the balance.

Which makes tonight that much harder to deal with.

The traditional selection of a mate for Gregory. The hum of excitement hangs in the air, but I don't feel it. Being here at the temple and not in the library or the battle room where Quinn and I used to study, makes me want to go positively mad. Especially, in light of how much I hate him.

I do try to paint the picture we are supposed to be though. We are the royal family, and despite how incongruent the reality is with the image, I champion it all the same. For the people that look to us for strength.

Beside me, Quinn stands silently, the picture of a princess. This is the only time I see her dressed in long robes, and they loop and hang gracefully over her. They hook and highlight the curves of her body; they soften her in some way and make her look so much older, regal.

When she looks at me I read apprehension in the field green of her eyes. They are deeper and darker than I have ever seen them. I wonder what she is more fearful of, Gregory having a mate picked or not.

The King stands with us, he watches the people gather with narrowed eyes. He doesn't look pleased, which is very foreign to find on the face of a King that always smiles.

The temple is dark and I stare into the depths of it, studying the shadows that seem to move around. I can't imagine how daunting that must have been for Quinn, how frightening it must have been for a young child to walk into there. Even now my feet wouldn't follow my command if I said I wanted to step into the vast darkness.

When I see the Queen and Gregory approaching, I shift closer to Quinn. I will never get past the way he looked the day he cut her and this proximity to her, makes me feel better. It isn't just because I know that she would protect me if something happened, but because I'm close enough to make sure she will never fall prey to him again.

She must feel the motion because her fingers brush mine, but she doesn't move aside from that.

The crowd roars and when the horns warble low and rattle the air around us, I feel it in my chest. It is just the right pitch to make my whole insides shiver. Gregory leans down to kiss his mother's face, embraces his father.

His cold eyes graze past me, past Quinn. It's so obvious how hateful he is of her, of us. When his back is turned and his steps trace up the stairs of the temple, I lean toward Quinn.

"Do you think it will happen, Princess?"

"I don't know." I watch as her brows furrow. "It's been so many turns, I don't know what to think anymore."

"Will we know?"

She nods slowly. "You will see the fire."

"You'll have to tell me about what it was like someday."

She angles her face toward me and I become very aware of how close she is to me. How if I lean forward, my lips could touch hers and that her feathers are pressed to mine; I can feel it through my wings and there is something very intimate about it. To touch someone's wings, is a very different kind of action than any other. It is taboo enough to have stopped me from grabbing Gregory's when he was attacking Quinn.

The memory burns in my mind superimposed on this moment with her and I wish I would have torn his wings off his back. The thought sours my mood and I blink away the images.

"I will."

I thin a smile and as I focus my eyes past Quinn, to the silent entrance to the temple, I feel her fingers brush against me again. I drag my gaze down between us. Her long fingers are stretched toward mine and I trace them with my eyes before a glow illuminates the dark archway of the temple.

I snap my gaze there, and the sound of surprise at the back of my throat is echoed by the entire city. It is dazzling and grows to be so bright I swear it feels like a second sun. I can feel the heat, the swirl and roar of flames. My hand is over my mouth when the shadows return.

I follow Quinn's steps, moving behind her as we crest the staircase.

What I find, surprises me. Gregory is knelt in the center of the chamber and ash surrounds him. The floor is scarred with char, but he is absolutely untouched. The Queen circles his head in her arms when he presses his face to her legs.

I watch the King, watch as he swirls the soot, and then stops. I can't help but imagine Gregory as Quinn so long ago.

When the King lifts the tile in his hand, the past and present crash together for me. I swear I expect him to say my name, and for the young girl on the floor in my mind's eyes to hear it with the same daze Gregory has on his face.

"The Goddess has spoken!" The King rights the tile in his hand. "The mate to Prince Gregory is Alyssith Deori."

Quinn's hand clamps on my arm, and I follow her eyes, straight to the way Gregory's face crumbles. The man that I fear, that she fears, becomes someone completely different. Alyssith's name is the name that changes everything and my throat tightens when his eyes close and spill tears.

I hang on that image as I lay in my bed. There is just enough light from the moon to let me see my book as I write. I lean closer, peering at the writing, reading through my words. I want to remember everything about tonight, so I take my time.

I try to explain the things I don't think I'll ever be able to put into words. What it felt like to stand beside Quinn at the temple, watching as Gregory walked into the dimness. How nervous I felt and I wasn't even involved. I can't imagine the feelings it would create, what Quinn must have felt, that day that I was picked for her.

That day she was picked for me.

The words bring a smile to my face.

As I think about that, putting aside my thoughts on Gregory, I draw long slow lines in the dark with my quill. I think about the touch of her hand and how the turns have slowly brought us close enough together that we can speak now. I think she wanted to hold my hand and I draw her hand in mine as my mind wanders.

I feel a hum in my stomach, the flutter of everything between my heart and my hips at the idea of what a hand holding could begin. The kisses, the touches. I draw it in the privacy of my room and breath life to it in the only way I can. By the time I'm finished, I have to blow out a very long steadying breath and cover the images before the ache inside me is too much to bear.

I close my book, rolling to my side to look out over the balcony. I trace the silver light that falls over the marble. When a shadow lands outside, my eyes widen until I realize it's Quinn. I can tell by the outline of her form, by the curve of her hips and her wings and the endless trail of her hair as it shifts in the breeze.

She bats aside the sheer drapes that swirl lazily in the temperate air. "Rachel?"

"Yes, princess?" I don't move from my place on the bed, I can't. I'm grateful for the dark so she can't see how flushed I am, though when she steps into the room and turns to see where I am, I almost wish I had a candle lit so I could see her face.

She starts in her place. "I wanted to see if you needed anything."

Quinn has been careful around me since the day of the tether breaking. She does things she never did before. Her harsh words have stopped and though they haven't been replaced by epithets of affection, I can still appreciate the lack of the former.

"I'm fine, thank you, princess." I cradle my side with careful hands and sit up slowly. I would give anything to ease the ache in my ribs.

"I brought crushed fruit." I watch as she holds the bottle out, and I can see the liquor and the fruit spin against the bright white marble outside as she swirls it.

I smile. "Thank you." I get up to retrieve glasses from the table by door, but Quinn gestures for me to stay and I do, letting her move around my bedchamber. When I hear the cork pull loose, I look over my shoulder at her.

I can see her pouring and when she carries the glasses toward me, I feel like she might join me in bed. She eyes the blankets and I stare at her. Her hair is traced in silver and her green eyes are catching the light.

My mouth is as dry as the dirt, as she gets closer.

And my side suddenly doesn't hurt at all.

She inclines the goblet toward me and I take it with expectant fingers, but Quinn moves away and slides slowly into the chair across the room. I measure how elegantly she pours into it and her wings spread to accommodate herself. She is a dark shadow backlit by the moonlight.

"It was a very eventful night."

I smell the fruit and stare down at it. "Yes, it was, princess."

"Quinn."

I look up at her. "What?"

"No more princess, by my name, please."

I try not to smile quite as brightly as I feel like I want to. "It was, Quinn." I mask the creeping grin by drinking. The fruit mutes the taste of the liquor until I swallow, and then the heat comes warming through me and scorching my throat.

She breaks the silence, and I think it might be the first time. "This is my favorite drink." I watch as her outline twists the flute in her hand and she stares at it. "I once got so drunk that I passed out under the table at a banquet."

I incline my brow at her, not expecting those words in the slightest. Quinn is incredibly dutiful, so imagining her doing something like that is utterly out of character. It certainly explains her limit of one glass at the festivals.

"When was this?"

She shrugs. "Some time ago, six or seven turns."

I take another sip as my mind imagines the young girl I first met in that kind of compromising condition. "I wouldn't have expected it."

"Nor I." Quinn says dryly. "I was quite ashamed."

"What other trouble have you been in, P-" I clear my throat, "Quinn?"

She laughs. "Enough, Gregory and I used to get in it constantly." When Quinn says his name, she sobers. "It is good he has a mate."

I nod. "Yes, perhaps it will settle him a little. He was very emotional about it."

Quinn tips back her head and finishes her glass. "Yes, I just pray he is happy, that he is always as emotional."

The way she says it, leaves so much hanging in the air around us, I can feel the pressure of the words. I drink more to keep from asking her. It takes everything I have to not to. I watch as she pours more into her glass.

And then, I do ask anyway. "When did everything change for you and him?"

She sighs in the dark. "When I was nine turns and he twelve, I was picked to be the Queen. That started it, but I think there was always something inside him that was angry. There is an ice in his eyes, that makes me feel like they must stay cold and hard to keep the evil from leaking out."

I nod. I have seen it too. "But it was different tonight. I think this has been something missing from his life for a long time."

"I do too." Quinn shrugs, "So much has been missing for all of us."

I want to read more in her words, but I stop the path my mind wants to take. "Yes."

"And what of your family Rachel? You have a brother, right?"

"I do, Ahmiran. He is the one I have spoken of, but I actually have two."

"Two."

"Yes."

"Tell me about Ahmiran."

When she asks me to, I find it so hard to think of a place to start. "My brother Ahmiran is the oldest, but he is a joker, a trickster." I smile in remembrance. "He used to play with us, fly me around the city and give my fathers fits."

"What is your favorite memory of him?"

I glance up from my drink to where Quinn is angled in the chair. She is regarding me, focused. "He used to tell me stories after dinner. Sometimes he would read them, from a book. Sometimes I would read them and he would act them out. That is my favorite memory, laying by the fire and falling asleep to my brother telling his stories."

"It is a good memory."

"Yes."

"Do you miss your family?"

There is something in the way she asks it, something that calls my attention to it. I know it's important to answer this correctly. "I do, but not when we are together."

"And when we are not together?"

"Then I do, a little, but I find other things to occupy my time."

"Like?"

"Reading. Drawing sometimes."

"Yes, you and your endless piles of books."

At just the mention of it, I discreetly tuck my most sacred and important one under the edge of the blanket beside me.

"Yes, me and my books."

She shifts in the chair under my words. I lower my eyes and finish my drink. When I right my glass Quinn is standing.

Her figure paints an image that will burn into my soul, and it is even more pronounced with the liquor flooding my head. It is languid and slow, the confidence she moves toward me with. I swallow as my eyes start at her thighs shifting with each step and end on the moonglow shine in piercing deep green eyes. Her whole body is traced in light and it makes her look like an apparition, like a Goddess.

When she is standing over me. I blink back the spin, the wave of pure heat that makes it impossible to speak.

Her voice is whisper soft and it makes it that much harder to breathe. "What do we have here?"

She is going to kiss me. I know it with everything in me and it is so utterly staggering. It's something I so desperately want.

When she leans down, I surge up. My eyes fixed to the shadows where I know her lips are. She moves past me and I catch the underside of her chin instead, holding my lips there. The skin is soft, warm, pliant under my mouth.

Quinn's hand touches my wing and then slides away.

When she pulls back my eyes drop to the book in her hand. I puzzle at it, until my hand touches the empty bed beside me. She has my book.

My brain won't work, even as she opens the cover.

She has _my_ book!

And all at once, reality shocks me. "Quinn!"

She moves a step back, clearly surprised at my outburst. "What is this?" Her fingers pass over the pages and I think I hear a laugh in her voice. "A story?"

"Give it back to me."

"The days of travel were so hard, long and impossibly draining for her. And to make matters worse, her father had dropped her sword into the forest, killing what little bit of her there was left to kill."

I go to grab it, but my stiff side groans in protest, halting my motions. I stand slowly, and she dances further back and out of reach.

Her hands race forward in the pages, a playful smile on her face. "She lost her breath at how beautiful the golden-haired Winlean was. How desperately she wanted to kiss her, touch her, win her heart through the love she wanted to give."

Quinn marks a page with her finger and taps the leather cover against the palm of her hand. "Well well," when I back her toward the table, the moonglow falls over her face and she has a very amused expression. "I didn't know you were such a romantic to read stories like this."

My face is hot, because she can't know it's _my_ story. "Give it back right now, Quinn!"

She turns away, sliding out of my delayed movements. I growl at her as she opens it. My hands grab for her, slick over her wings, and miss.

She distances herself across the room and leans the writing and the new page into the light so she can see. "In her dreams, she caressed the body before her-"

Quinn runs further away with my screams chasing her. "Quinn, no! No!"

The next page. "-tracing between her legs, stroking her and making her body tremble in expectation."

I narrow my eyes at her, "stop."

Quinn glimmers a smile at me and with a very exaggerated motion, thumbs to the next page. "Or what?" Her eyes drop, "with a lover's kiss she pushed her mate gently to the grass and positioned herself between her thighs."

I see her eyes widen as they scan further, and she looks up at me. "Rachel." She laughs as I lunge for her, "written in your own hand even."

I flush even hotter, "if you don't give it back this moment I swear I'll never forgive you."

She snorts a laugh and once again gets away. "If I don't keep reading your little book, I'll never forgive myself. This is so telling, Rachel." This time she flips a few pages more and if she gets to the end of the story I will truly and spectacularly die.

I scream out the only thing I can think of before her fingers hit the page. "I hate you!"

She looks up at me, her eyes smiling despite my words. When I see where her fingers are pressed, they are right over where my drawings are. I can see the ink dark sketch under her hand.

And if she moves her hand I don't know what I'll do. Because its of her and I and the things I imagine when I sleep.

Her hands move and she looks down. When her eyes widen, she is standing still long enough for me to tear the book out of her grip. The binding rips and it sounds like a crack of thunder as the pages splatter to the floor.

Quinn stares down, stares right at the image I didn't want her to see.

Where in painstaking detail I drew her sitting in my lap, my hand in her hair and hers in mine while my free hand is disappeared between us. I can't refute it is her and I, it is too obvious, too blatant with the circlet crown we wear on the drawing's heads.

I dive to cover it. "Get out."

Quinn doesn't say a word, but I watch as her bare feet pad past me, papers sticking to the soles of them. She pulls them free when she clears the pile and as I look back at her she sets them on the table softly.

"I'm sorry."

"Get out."

She doesn't look at me, not even when she dives from my balcony and leaves me to my mortification.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: I'm so glad that the voices are different for these characters, and that as reader you can tell that Rachel is far more emotive than Quinn... that is until now.

So... sex and plot. Enjoy.

Also, how many people remember the story Ahmiran told Rachel in chapter 2?

* * *

**Chapter 13**

**Quinn 1416**

I wander into the library.

It's late, far too late for prying eyes to be awake. That is how I want it, I wish to not be disturbed. And though I've never done it before, I bolt the doors closed behind me deterring anyone who would want to come.

I lean back against the paneling, feeling its solidity, as my eyes take in the massive rows of books before me. I know what it is I'm looking for, I found the book once, many years ago. It has been a long time, but I remember it had a red cover and gold print.

How I'm supposed to find it again is beyond me, but as I lift my eyes up to the cases upon cases of tomes, I commit myself to it.

There is an odd sense of expectation that flutters inside me as I trace the rows. The covers of the books rebound with shadow as the candle I hold flickers. I trace them in turn, fingers touching lightly, swirling over the bindings.

Bindings exactly like her book.

Rachel's.

The images of her pepper in my mind, but it isn't just the drawings done in her hand. It's how she looked in the deep shadows of her room. I can't stop replaying the image of walking into her chamber, seeing her poured into her bed. All I could see was the moonlight woven into her hair, her eyes catching the light, and the long stretch of her curving body beneath the silk she wore.

It makes me yearn to walk onto my own bedchamber, and see it. To see Rachel taking a nap or a bath, and know that the ravishing young woman is mine. That she will stand beside me for a hundred years, a thousand, if I could have it my way.

When my fingers touch over the book I'm looking for, I miss it entirely.

It takes several moments for my mind to realize I just saw it with as focused as I am on thoughts of her. I return to the small red cover and pull it free of the bookstack. It's smaller than I remember it being, certainly not the massive book I held in my hands once upon a time.

My hands also didn't perspire like they are now when I touched it the last time.

With my candle in my hand I carry it to the table and take up the seat near where I cried my heart out before Rachel ever came. I stare at the spot on the floor, measure it with eyes that are very different. I don't miss how cyclical it feels being here, now that things have turned and changed.

And they have changed so dramatically.

I feather my fingers over the closed cover before me and think about how much we have grown. The times we have spent together swirl in my mind, all four turns press through my memories and I smile. And then I swallow as the book comes back into focus.

I chew my lip as I open the cover.

_The Mating Practices of Female Winleans_

Just the title makes color come up to cover my cheeks and despite being alone I look around. The pages stick to my fingers as I turn them, my heart pounding harder than I think it ever has. I lean over and pull the book closer in both hands. My eyes scroll through the list of sections, it is all very nerve wracking. Potions, Anatomy, Responses, Common Practices, Positions; I read the last section and breathe in so hard I choke on the rush of air. My cough is loud and startles me enough that I slam the cover of the book closed, pushing it away.

I don't miss how ridiculous what I just did is.

I've never felt shy about sexuality before. It is something very natural I know that, and I think it was something I always wanted. When I was much younger, before Gregory twisted everything for me, I had thought about it. I think I had thought about what it would be like to have a mate. They weren't fully developed fantasies, certainly not, but they hinted at the things that I knew would someday happen.

Could happen.

As odd as it is, I am certain those daydreams had the lingering feminine connotations of Rachel though I didn't know her. I don't know how it is I know they did, it doesn't make sense. Perhaps it was just that now I make the connection, it's only now that I yearn for them to have her within them.

I lift my eyes to the ceiling briefly asking for the Goddess to not hear my thoughts; there are a few things I can only admit to myself.

One of those things is that I want to mate with her. That when I saw her very accurate drawing of us, I felt desire so deep, so sharp - I'm surprised I didn't melt right there. I wanted to kiss her and touch her and it was all very confusing because she was so angry I saw her drawings.

I shouldn't have looked in her book.

I'm still glad I did though, despite my hurried apology.

I stare hard at the book before me and slide it open again.

I read where I can, where the drawings don't pull my attention and make it impossible to focus.

I flip quickly through all the pages, getting an idea of what can be done between two females and my hands are tingling because I'm breathing hard from the words and pictures I see. I feel like I might climax simply because of how deliciously explicit everything is and every drawing might as well be of her and I done by Rachel's hand.

When I get to the end my eyes close on the image of Rachel and I performing these acts.

There is something even more intimate about the writing knowing that the woman I've grown up with, wants this. That she imagined and manifested an image in her mind of my lips on hers, my body touching hers, her fingers penetrating me. It reminds me of Rachel's little romantic story, and I picture the grass, her hair tumbling in a dark wave against the grass. I picture my mouth against hers and my fingers within her as her moans ignite the air between us.

Because anything I give, I want to take in return.

I drop the book to the table and swallow over and over, willing moisture back into my dry throat. My whole body is trembling and I stand on shaken knees. It feels like I'm going to tear out of my skin, that if I don't do something I will combust into flames. My stumbling steps move me around the table and I end up back in my same spot.

I circle the table again.

This time I grab the book as I lap past it, and I drag it into my arms. I hold it close, like a secret, like the love I have for her.

Right as I do, I hear a surprised gasp and I spin toward where it came from, high on the wall behind me. I stumble back against the table ungainly, hiding the book behind my back when I see it's Rachel.

"What are you doing here?" I almost yell it, horrified because the image of her leaning on the archway of the window and all those gracious curves makes the anatomy I just read about, throb uncomfortably.

She lands lightly, staring at me. "I come here at night to work on a solution for the grain situation." Of course she does, why wouldn't she? "The door was stuck, I came around to see if something was blocking it."

When she nears a little closer, I worm back as tightly to the edge of the table as I can, practically sitting on it to put as much distance as possible between her and the book. "It's fine. I locked it."

"Why?" I see her eyes go to where my arms are behind me. "Is there something you didn't want someone to see?"

I don't miss the reticence in her words. I have to think fast, but it is so hard with this cloud of arousal covering everything in a haze. I can't remember what I do when I'm acting normal, how I hold my hands, how to breathe.

Calm, be calm.

I shrug, bringing the book around to rest against my legs lightly. "No. I was just reading as well." I act as nonchalant as possible.

"Oh, what is the book about? I'm sure I've probably read it."

The idea seizes my throat so tightly I wheeze, which does absolutely nothing for me looking cool and collected.

She holds out her hand. "May I?"

I look down at the red cover, at the way my hand is trembling around it. I clear my throat when I lift my gaze to hers. She has a smile in her eyes, like she knows. It makes my whole stomach flutter, makes every single piece of me bend and break to her whim. It dawns on me that what I'm doing is exactly what she wants me to do and though I'm not the best at strategy games, I do know something very strategic about this moment.

She has felt similar to this before, otherwise she would never have made that drawing.

With as much effort as I have at my disposal, I smile coolly. "I have a better idea." I indicate the table beside me and as I ease off it I make space for her to sit. Rachel raises a brow at me, but she sits anyway.

"What is your better idea?"

I set the book down between us, trailing my fingers over the top reverently. "I want to share something with you."

"Oh?" Rachel slides forward, leaning over to regard the book. From this close, I can smell the sweetness of honeysuckle and a weaving of something else, something warm and tantalizing behind it. I catch my breath and hold it as Rachel's sparkling dark eyes flit back to me. "Is it the book?"

I nod, gathering up myself to have the courage to flip it open. And I do, nudging it close enough for Rachel to read it in the candlelight. With careful fingers I smooth down the first page where the title is announced in bold print and watch color paint Rachel's face.

A hesitant gaze lifts to mine and I wet my lips before I speak. I can't say anything though because the way Rachel is looking at my mouth stops my voice from forming. It makes my breath ragged because her eyes are so focused, so direct. I lick my lips again experimentally and when Rachel breathes deeper, I feel the charge of power shoot through me.

I flip a few pages forward, spreading my fingers over the first detailed image. I glance at it, and it catches my breath. Rachel's eyes are still on me, and when my breath staggers I see her shift, her hand on the table pressing until her nail beds turn white under the pressure.

"Look down." I whisper.

And Rachel does.

I feather my fingers over the page in a caress. "Do you like what you see?" I watch Rachel stop breathing, her mouth hanging open as her eyes bounce over the image. I swipe my thumb over the picture, "do you?"

"Yes." The response is breathless.

"Do you want to see more?" It is quite possibly the darkest I have ever heard my voice and as surprising as it is to hear, it's even more surprising to watch Rachel respond to it. I watch her whole body tremble, from her toes to her wings.

"Yes."

I flip forward, feeling Rachel's eyes lift until they are on my face. I glance at her and give her a smile as I dart my eyes to the pages. When my gaze lands on an image of a light haired Winlean, arms wrapped around the hips of another, mouth pleasuring the spot between the other's legs, I exhale so hard the sound resonates in the room.

"And this?" I whisper breathlessly.

Rachel blows out a breath of air too and my eyes lose focus as my imaginings instantly hook on the picture and put Rachel and I in the situation. I close my eyes imagining it until my whole body is wound so tightly I feel like the muscle could break the bones inside me like kindling.

"Can you imagine it?" I ask hotly because I need to know if I'm not the only one who can.

Rachel runs a hand over her face and it ends in her hair. She doesn't answer me. I forget why I'm doing this, because suddenly the answer to my subsequent question is all that matters. I lean forward drawn in by the long lashes and the intensity of Rachel's eyes on the picture. "Would you want me to do this to you, Rachel?"

She looks up at me, her eyes smoldering nearly ember red, brighter than I've ever seen them. It seems impossible with the haunting clarity they always have, but I swear it is even more pronounced, more glorious.

"Y-" she takes a shaken breath. "If you wanted to." She pierces me with her gaze. "Do you want to?"

I feel the power shift between us and I struggle to even breathe let alone think about repositioning myself in control of the situation. "Would you arch like this?" I point at the image, at the figure underneath.

Rachel blinks wide-eyed at me, and it is so utterly adorable I feel a genuine smile wipe my face. She smiles too, very slowly as she leans back, filling the chair in a reclining position that echoes reminiscent of the image we were just looking at. She tilts her head at me as her back _does _arch minutely and her wings shift into a more comfortable position. "I imagine I would, Quinn."

I can't tear my eyes away from the silk outlining her body in a shimmer; it drips over her breasts and slides down the plain of her stomach to pool with shadows in her lap. I breathe so deeply it hurts.

Rachel is smiling when I can lift my eyes to hers.

I go to the book, finding the image that looks just like her drawing, my hands are unsteady as I flip through it. When the image pops, I swallow, willing myself to push the book toward her. When I finally do, my voice comes out tight and very warm. "And this? What if I wanted to do this to you?"

Rachel hesitantly pulls the book into her lap and I watch her. It is utterly spellbinding, the way she takes it in and her expression shifts into a mixture of desire and reservation, arousal and propriety. It makes me feel very powerful when Rachel looks up at me finally. She looks overwhelmed by it, affected to a depth I don't think I've ever seen.

I realize slowly that as much as this started as a way to hide my own embarrassment and embarrass her in turn, it has become something else entirely. The air between us feels very hot and the strategy ends when Rachel moves, closing the book on the table.

She takes my power away when her hand comes out to touch my arm. I wasn't expecting it, not the touch or the way it makes me flutter. My skin is so sensitive, even the slow trace is like a slam against my senses. When she rises and slides close to me, her form reclining against the table, the pull of her hand brings me to my feet under her command.

"Quinn?"

My name in her voice sizzles through my body. "Yes?"

"Do you want to?" I feel her shift and place her hand on the book. "Do you want to do this with me?"

I can't answer, because I do. "Do you want me to?"

She pulls me closer, and I'm helpless to do anything other than follow her direction until we are sharing the same breath. From this close, I see her eyes aren't completely brown, at the very edge and at the very center they are lined in a blue as radiant as the Inquisitor's magic. They are just fine lines, but they are what makes them glow so preternaturally.

I don't remember them being there before.

It's the most stunning thing I've ever seen.

"Yes, I do want you to."

Rachel's words make me gasp for air and her hands slides further up my arms, until her fingers hook around my elbows and her lips are almost on mine. I swear I can taste her, and that honeysuckle scent is so playful and sensual. I realize the other scent I couldn't define earlier, the warmth that made me salivate, is _her_. It's her skin. I catch it very subtly and I can't explain it or classify it, but it reminds me of water and warmth and I want to drown in it.

"Does the idea of it excite you?" I have trouble pushing out the rest of what I want to say, "does it make you aroused like the book said?"

Rachel's eyes bounce over mine and blink a few times. I can see her embarrassment, the way her face reddens again. "Quinn?"

"Tell me." Even though I already know the answer I want to hear it from her lips.

She laughs uncomfortably, shifting around in my hands. I realize belatedly, my grip has corralled her waist. I squeeze the warm skin under the silk and it stops her motions as she presses closer to me.

"Why do you want me to tell you that?"

I smile. "Because I want to know."

"Why though?"

I shake my head, "because I'm _your _princess and I want to know."

I had every intention of teasing her when I said it, but I didn't expect the way it would make me feel to say it. When Rachel smiles, I feel a very deep, very emotional burn pull through me. I mean it, I feel it.

I am her princess, _hers _and no one elses ever.

She must read it on my face, because her eyes lid a little as her forehead presses to mine. "Yes, Quinn it does."

Her words make my body reciprocate the arousal, and I shift as I feel it, pulling her closer. I lick my lips, very aware of how much everything aches. "Could I," I swallow brokenly, unable to catch the rush of air I so desperately need. "If I took my fingers and put them there-"

"Yes?" Rachel prompts sounding as breathless as I as her hands tighten on me.

"Are you excited enough now that I could?"

Rachel makes a sound then, one that takes the ache I felt and magnifies it into one shuddering thob and I whine softly into the space between us. With the way that Rachel blinks at me and then licks her lips, swallowing hard enough I can see her throat move, she had not been expecting her sound, nor mine and it represents something very private between the two of us.

I incline my head, my lips feathering over hers as I speak. "Your answer?"

Rachel shakes her head, tightening her fingers, as she whispers back against me. "I won't tell you that."

"Why?"

She bites her lip and I feel her teeth. I don't know why, but I want to lick them, kiss them - kiss her everywhere.

"Because what you are asking me is something very unfair." She sighs and I breathe her in, "I can't tell you that unless you tell me something first."

I nod softly. Anything. "Certainly."

Rachel presses in closer. It makes it impossible for me to focus on anything other than her heat and the way she half-lids her eyes before closing them. Her lips touch mine a moment later, my stomach fluttering; and though it isn't the type of impassioned kiss I've seen others share, it feels like one.

It makes my heart hammer until I can't hear anything over the roar in my ears.

Rachel pulls back after a moment, and her voice is smokey against my lips again. "I'll tell you everything, if you first call me by my title."

Her words catch me off guard. However, standing this close having just felt her kiss again for what feels like the first time, it seems like it should be something I have no trouble doing. I ramp up the words. "Rachel?"

"Yes, Quinn?"

"You are my mate."

I don't know what I was expecting, but Rachel surges forward and I feel the warmth of her body and the way her curves fit against me right before her lips burn across mine. I feel all my control slip away, and I press into her, gripping tight in her hair, pulling her into me with a shimmying breath between us. Her hands map my back and when her fingers splay around where my wings start and she uses them to pull my body into hers, I break the kiss because I can't breathe.

She does it again, crushing a gasp from my lips with how delicately her body arches into mine.

She holds me tight and twists me. I follow the motion until she has me pinned between her and the table. My hands trace hesitantly, feeling cool silk and then the blossom of heat from her body. She slides the candle across the table and it rattles ungainly in it's holder. I pull back to look at it in surprise.

Then she presses closer and I realize she is bowing me backward. I grapple for her fingers, twisting mine into hers and I close my eyes as I feel my wings spread across the wood pressing the books out of the way. I hold her hands at bay from my very vulnerable position.

"Rachel, wait."

She swallows, halting her motions as she stares at me in the faded light. "Yes?"

"You said you would answer my question if I told you."

Rachel's eyes flash, those blue rings catch the light and shimmer. "Yes, I am excited enough. You could easily mate with me right now if you wanted to."

I take a very unsteady breath. "Do you want me to?"

"Mate with me?" Rachel's voice chokes tightly, "yes, Quinn, I want that."

"And what of being a Crown Princess and an Ascendent?"

I don't know why I ask it, because it's something beyond my ability to fulfill yet. I would have to be actively trying to produce an heir with my mate. I would have to drink an elixir and climax with her, inside her.

The gravity of it all makes me uncomfortable, especially as Rachel leans over me, pinning my hands to the table as I blink at her. I don't like it, I shift nervously. "Quinn?"

"What?" I wedge, anxious.

"Calm yourself. I'll never hurt you." Her words cut me to the bone because of how transparent I am, how vulnerable I feel. When she places her free hand on the space over where I feel pain in my heart, it's all too much.

"I will always protect you, always care for you. And in this, it will be no different." She smiles gently. "I am not playing when I tell you what I'm about to. I do want to mate with you and I want you to drink the potion and become a Crown Princess, I want you to have that, with me as your Ascendant."

Her words are said so softly they make my chest hurt more. I don't understand why. It makes everything ache and burn and stings my eyes. I blink, struggling to contain the riptide of emotion that storms over my breakwalls. "I want that too."

Her fingers tighten in mine and I lick my lips as I rush air into my chest when I look up at my hands in hers.

"I want to drink the potion, as well."

I tremble at the thought of being under her just like this as she mates with me. It drags a breathless groan from my lips. I bask in her tone and the images and when I become aware of her leaning closer, I crush my eyes closed as her lips cover mine. It feels like the sunlight, like the fire that tore through the temple and brought us together. Her fingers loosen and I pull her toward me, desperate.

I need it. I need it more than anything in my life.

"Yes, please."

I've never begged, it is beneath a princess, but I would do it for her.

Rachel clutches me tighter, standing me slowly. I nip at her lips, softly as the fury of our passion slows. When I pull back, Rachel looks at me wonderously.

Her hand brushes aside my hair, and then tenderly, smoothes up into the strands to free my circlet from it. I stare at her eyes as she does it, watching her expression shift, and once it's free of my hair, she smiles. It pulls at my heart and I don't know how to contain it aside from whispering her name to release the pressure.

Rachel sets my crown on the table behind me, stripping me of my title and my responsibility. And I'm not afraid, not when her tender hands guard me in the times where I'm just a girl. When I'm just _hers_.

"Do you love me?"

I swallow hesitantly, unable to catch my breath. I busy myself with freeing her from her crown as she stares at me. I set it beside mine. I open my mouth to speak, to tell her.

"Yes."

She grins, her hands emboldened, map over my sides and burn me as they trace down my body. I roll my eyes closed, relishing in the pressure of her fingertips as they reach the bottom of my shift and meet skin on my thighs. "Do you love me?"

Her lips are hot against my neck as her fingers move up. I focus on it, feel it as her hands press hotly against my hips, her thumbs so very close to where I can feel myself tightening in want. "I have for a very long time."

"How long?" I whisper brokenly, when her breath moves over the wet places her mouth has been kissing.

"For so very long."

I jump when her fingers feather lightly between my legs. It teases me, and I open my legs, accommodating her as Rachel's lips press to my ear. "How much do you love me?"

I can't put it into words. I'll never be able to. I love her more than anything in the world. She is my everything, and I know we are bound by the soul just as much as we are bound by fate. "With everything."

"More than Winland?"

I nod quickly as her fingers press more firmly, and then blessedly they caress with enough contact for the motion to splinter a chain of lightning through me. Her mouth covers mine, as I moan at the touch. Legs trembling I'm grateful when Rachel's free hand wraps my waist, holding me steady.

"More than the court?"

She does the motion again, and I meet her eyes, let them memorize what her motions do to me. They are bright, excited, and pour warmth into me. I pant softly as she circles a little faster. "Yes, oh Goddess, much more."

My hand flexes on her side and when her mouth opens in a soft moan and her fingers slide to where I need her, I arch in expectation.

"Tell me you love me more than your throne?"

Her words break over me, and I kiss her, needing to be closer, forever closer. In the next moment her fingers claim me and I half gasp, half whine as I feel her inside me. My response is breathless. "Yes, I do Rachel."

I do.

I would give my crown over if she asked it.

I would give my life, my body, my soul to her. She has a power over me that no one will ever be able to stake claim on ever again. Rachel blinds me of all rational thought, drives words into me that never miss their mark, that have the power to break me or mend me.

And here in her arms, everything means that much more.

"Does this please you?"

Her whisper makes me shiver, and I nod, shifting my hips slowly into the softness of her hand. Rachel presses up on her toes, resting her forehead against mine, her own motions pushing deeper and pulling away, turning me inside out for her. I whine against her lips, overwhelmed.

"I love having a small modicum of power over you."

And she does something that rips the air from my chest, makes my whole body spasm. I cry out her name and half answer her statement. "Rachel! You have more than a _small_ amount."

"How much?"

I can't answer her, not when her fingers move into me again and press to a place within me that splinters me like a tree shocked by a storm.

And when I open my mouth to tell her, to proclaim that she can have everything and anything she wants, I feel the oddest race of cold leak into me. I blink my eyes clear of my delirium, staring at the ceiling, at the banners of all those who came before me.

And I wonder why she would ask me everything she did? Why would she ask if I loved her more than my throne?

Her motions within me slow and when they stop entirely, I glance down at her and the seriousness in her face. "Quinn?"

I shift against where I've been holding myself upright at the table and Rachel eases her fingers back until she's free of my body and I feel the distinctive smart of pain from her motions. It makes it hard to get my legs under me and steady. "Why did you ask me that?"

She blinks at me. "Ask you what?"

"How much power you had over me? And if I loved you more than my throne?"

Her eyes move back and forth over mine as she shakes her head slowly. "It was something I wanted to know."

"Why?"

"I can't answer that," Rachel swallows hesitantly, "it excites me to think it." Her expression cools a touch, her lips pulling into a frown. "Did you think I meant something malicious by it? Is that why you stopped enjoying yourself?"

Now, I don't know what to say. "I - I was thinking about how strange it sounded."

Rachel eyes me, dubiously. "We have known eachother for so long and yet, still you think I'm some villainous Thursian out to get your throne."

"I didn't say that."

"But you felt it."

"I don't know what I felt." I say honestly.

"Why are you so afraid?" She whispers, pulling back far enough that we are no longer sharing the same air. "Do you think that I come here every turn for nothing but your throne? That I have spent the last four turns of my life coming here for the sport of being mistreated by you?"

"I have been manipulated by everyone in my life." It is both my explanation and my apology. "Why not you?"

"Why not _me_?"

"You more than anyone would benefit from controlling me."

Because, my God, she so easily could.

I wait a beat, two, as my voice carries and then dies in the room. My words finally coming to a rest heavy enough that they shatter the mosaic between us.

I watch as Rachel puts a hand to her stomach like she has been run through with a sword. It takes a moment, but the glow in her eyes spills over and I half expect her to leave.

She has never cried in front of me before.

"Me? Coming here, missing my family, missing my _home_. How dare you even think it." She wipes at her cheek and grabs for her crown. The scratch of silver against wood rakes the air around us. "You want to see how little I care for a throne?"

She rattles it in her hand before me and I know exactly what she is going to do the moment before she does it.

"Don't you dare, Rachel."

But she does anyway, tossing her crown like rubbish to clatter in the vast darkness beyond the closest bookstack. The crown my family has bled and died to keep _ours_.

"How dare you?" Her actions absolutely incense me and I see a swarm of red anger haze my vision. "You vile, evil _thing_! How dare you! How dare you think you can do that! You will never be fit to wear my crown, share my throne! Go find it, and return it to me!"

"No!" She growls it at me. "How dare I, how dare you? You are a pathetic coward, so lost in your world that you can't see the reality! You won't have a throne to share because if this kingdom is yours, you'll lose it all!"

That's all I can take. "I wish you wouldn't ever come back. I hate you." I growl.

"Believe me _Princess_, I hate you more."

I hold her eyes, stare into them, as I cut in for the death strike. "I don't want you as my mate, and I will defy the Goddess for it. So get out of my library and never come back. You are not welcome here."

My words, weak as they are said, do their damage. And though I'm angry, my heart breaks when I watch Rachel bow her head and then her legs are swept out from under her with the emotion that follows. She slides to the floor. When the first surprising sob hits her throat, her wings shift with each crush of emotion through her, and my own chest heaves. And she cries harder than I have ever seen anyone cry.

I try to remember back to all the things I've done, the mean, spiteful cruelties, but this moment is by far and away the most horrible. I have finally achieved what I wanted to so long ago. I have finally toppled the brave resolve she always had.

I realize with a start that it is the taking away of an intimacy between us that is the undoing of her. It makes me feel terrible, and I hold my forehead in my hand as Rachel's tears fill my ears. The juxtaposition of my fear and anger against her bitter sorrow, make me feel guilt for the first time in my life.

Despite how desperately I want to apologize and tell her I was lying, want to tell her I _am _a coward, want to kiss her and calm her tears, I can't.

I open my mouth, but Rachel's voice comes first.

"Please leave."

My wings bristle under the coldness of her tone. It is absolutely different, night and day with how she has ever sounded.

"This is _my_ library." I wedge. I have no idea why I say it. Why do I say it?

She looks up at me then, tears raking down her cheeks and swelling her eyes. "Have it then." Rachel shakes her head. "I hope you are happy with yourself, that you have finally gotten what you always wanted."

"What is that?"

She laughs, bitterly. "To make me hurt so badly I don't think I'll survive it."

I swallow past the lump in my throat, willing my voice to come, but it is all too late.

"You can have your crown Quinn, you can become Queen and take from my body whatever you need to get that title when you can get past the vile thing that I am." She shudders a breath, "I'm going home to Emberlin though, just as you suggested."

"When?"

"Tonight."

She has never left before the harvest before. "Oh?"

"Yes, I can never look at you the same again because you are so cruel. When we were children it was different because I could make allowances for you, but-" she wipes her face then, gathering herself to levy the words I know she will say and crush me with.

"Now, as nearly adults, I'm tired of trying to love someone like you. I don't think there is any way I can ever love you now." She fixes me with a look that is a slap in the face that shoots straight to my heart, "and the worst part was that I did."

"Oh." And suddenly I feel completely and absolutely empty. I didn't realize how much she had filled me, until I hear her take it all away.

"Is that all you can say?" The incredulity in her voice cuts me and when she collapses again in tears over her own words, I stay until I can't stand it anymore.

When I finally leave her, I do it with the echo of what I have lost haunting me and she leaves as well, just as she promised.

* * *

And when the winter snap comes, icing over the marble and freezing me, I sit before the hearth unable to touch heat. I walk the palace at night, blind to everything. I don't sleep, I don't eat. I weep into my bed, my hands, my knees, broken under my own words. I write Rachel letters, letters that go unanswered.

And rightfully so, because she doesn't love me anymore.

But I love her.

I wonder if it's possible that because she was within me, somehow I've been chained to her in a different way than she has been to me. Those thoughts reduce me to dizzying spells of misery and sorrow, that leave me empty, breathless, and afraid for the future.

However, tonight is the first night I've slept in a while, so when I awake in the blackness I don't understand why. I typically sleep through the night. I wipe at my eyes, staring into the dark. Then I realize why I've awakened. It announces itself in a sharp guttural pain that steals my breath. I roll to my side, covering where it hurts as I pant heavily.

It's intolerable. I slip weakly from my bed. If I could just get my feet under me, I could get to the guards. They would help me. I wipe back the sweat on my brow, measuring how far it is the my bedchamber door.

I crawl toward it, slowly. But then everything is melting into a pool of color and sound, and for a moment I think it's the fire from the temple again. But then I realize it's me.

Everything strips away, except the fire. It's in me, on me, racing up my hands I have pressed to the floor. I can't even scream, even though I want to. I want to scream for Rachel, call her to me. Of all the people around me, she is the only one that matters when I'm being torn apart.

I smell sulphur thick and heavy and then at the same moment my back snaps me into an arch, a charge spills out of me. It tears apart my room, shattering my bed like kindling and rips the walls away in a hail of marble shards.

It leaves me breathless and heaving, staring up at a star pocked sky with Rachel's name on my lips.

And I drown in the merciful darkness that follows.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Mellow chapter with Queen awesomeness. Building back up again. :) I can't give you everything in the next few chapters cause this stuff coming up is super delicious with repentant Quinn.

Also, tumblr? Is it still the faberry place to be?

* * *

Chapter 14

Rachel 1417

I left my home with angry words.

I've never done it before, because I always wanted to be certain that if something were to happen, that I would never feel regret.

This time, when my father forced the guards to take me back to Winland, I told him I hated him. I cried and screamed like a child in sheer desperation before stepping out into the city square where the guard envoy was waiting. Though my tears were dry, I made sure he knew I meant everything I said with my last backward glance.

Now, less than a day before I arrive, the bolt of agony is tripled because I can see the city hanging resolute in the distance. As the highland plateaus give way to the deep valley where our capital city floats silently, I feel a twist in my bowels so sharp it is hard to breathe. My stomach drops and I stare at it, until it grows large in the sky and the twilight drags the color out of the sunset.

"Lady Rachel, we will stop at the cliff face."

We stop here at the cusp of every trip to rest before the final push to the cloud city the following morning. It is the same every time since that first visit, since we inconvenienced the Queen. It makes me sick with the remembrance of it, of that day that began my torment.

My body moves on pure memory, my wings buffet the air and I land right on the edge of the drop that would kill me if I couldn't fly.

It isn't the first time in my life that I wish I didn't, but I mean it so much more now.

I stare down at the sheer face beneath me and my eyes follow to where it melts from rock to grassland and then further to the shadow of the city I hate so much. I stare at it again the same way I always do from the same vantage I always do it. I know I will stare at it until late into the night and fall asleep with its luminous image hovering in view. And even though I will sleep on a bedroll of fur against rock under an open sky, I also know it will be the best sleep I'll get until the next turning season.

I worry about what evils wait for me in the place I am supposed to call home someday. I wonder what more Quinn can take from me without killing me.

"Lady." The voice of the guard startles me from my thoughts.

"Yes?"

"There is food to be had."

Yes, food.

I eat out of duty to do so because the last thing I want is food in me. It wasn't until my most recent pilgrimage last turn that I realized the less I eat the less likely I am to lose it. I feel rather stupid it took five turns for me to learn that. Five times I have traveled a distance greater than any I ever thought I would for duty, for the honor of my family and my homeland.

I don't know who I am doing this for anymore because in truth I believe in my heart that no honor is worth it.

Not all the silver and silk, spacious halls and palatial chambers, edicts and sonnets and writings about me will ever make the misery less painful.

There is no honor that can replace the humiliation I have endured in its name.

I think about that all night and all the while I watch the floating spires in the distance. The image of the city, of Quinn staring at me in the darkness and saying those terrible things to me, drags heavy tears down my temples. The morning sun comes too soon, coloring the sky in pink and gold. I stare at it, watching as the city itself glows and changes color as well. When the guards that keep me safe for the trip rouse, I know the peace I cling to is gone.

I skip the meal they offer.

It's a short flight to Winland from the Stone Face. It comes too quickly, just as all bad things do. As I rise through the cloud cover, I stare beneath me at the hard brown land that was once so fertile. The deep tear in the ground, where the binding tether scarred the fields; the place where Quinn and I had stood together, is stark in my eyes.

I'm not at peace with the solution to the shortage of wheat. The end resolution, was to trade for it. Winland holds a few trade agreements, most of it based in silver, because we control most of the mines. So that was the agreement with the neighboring kingdom beyond the mountains. Our silver for the Human's wheat.

It was Quinn's idea, not mine.

I felt that it would create a problem and devalue our other trade agreements that were based in silver, but as with all things, Quinn would never listen to reason.

Just thinking her name, dares my eyes to tear. I shake the emotion away, focusing on the steep climb and jarring choke of clouds as I enter them.

When the mist parts enough for me to see the city, I slow. In all five times I've made this trip, I've never seen so many Winlean in the sky. They figures patrol in wide circles, partly the royal guard and the rest soldiers from the standing army.

I stare at them as I move slowly toward the palace.

But it's not the same palace I remember.

Where once open airy balconies poured into beautiful rooms, now they are shut tight. Gone are the sprawling walks of flowers, replaced instead by macabre looking racks of spikes. The low walls that once circled the courtyard, have grown into battlements, high and formidable.

It looks like preparation for war.

I swallow hesitantly at the thought. My eyes catch and hang on a large section of the palace towers, where scaffolds seemingly hold the structure together. I trace the charred and shattered walls, and when I realize where that is in the palace my throat chokes tightly.

It's Quinn's chambers.

I turn to the guard beside me. "The Princess?"

"Yes, Lady?"

"Is she safe?" Right as I say it, I remember her letters and curse myself for not opening them.

"Yes, Lady."

"What happened?"

"And attack on the palace, catapult damage."

I frown, because though it looks like some time has passed since the attack, I'm fairly certain it doesn't look like catapult damage. The shatter is wrong, the marble still standing bends outward, like a force from within cored the room out. I follow the damage down the side of the palace, to where chunks of marble fell in a circle, confirming my thoughts.

It was certainly not a catapult that did this.

When I land, I'm surprised that only the Queen is at the palace steps. It is the first time that Quinn hasn't waited for me. I don't know if I feel fear or relief about that.

She follows where my eyes take in the palace damage and the stark cold walls shooting up around me.

"Much changes in two seasons."

I regard her, nodding. "I see. Are we preparing for additional attacks?"

She firms her lips into a thin line, but doesn't speak. "Are you? Or have we all gotten our fill of attacking of one another?"

I know exactly what she is saying and when I embrace her, and she kisses my forehead, it feels very bittersweet with how her words hit the mark. "I believe there will still be words yet."

She nods curtly, smiling a little. "Words are good though Quinn is unavailable at present. May I walk with you? I have something I want to show you."

I nod. "Of course, my Queen."

She takes my arm in hers and with a salute of thanks she dismisses the guard bowing at the base of the steps. She leads me toward the upstairs chambers and though she doesn't speak, I can feel she wants to. When we are finally alone, she turns to me.

"Rachel, I feel so horrible for what happened to drive you away last turn."

I stare at the marble beneath my feet. "It was inevitable I suppose." It is very true, it was the last possible way to increase the aggression between us.

She glances at me and stops to touch my face. I don't realize she has wiped at my tears until her fingertips come back wet. I see so much of Quinn in her that it almost makes my tears fall harder. "Would you tell me what happened?"

"No, I can't say. It's too terrible."

She starts walking again and when her words fall over me I realize we are in a part of the palace I have never been to before. "When I was much younger, I made many mistakes. I told Quinn once, that words carry more weight than anything and the reason I can say that is because I've learned it well throughout my time."

"I doubt your words were as venomous." I don't meet her eyes, I stare instead at the fresco on the wall. It's of a town, bright and beautiful, framed in the morning light.

"Do you like it?" She indicates the painting.

"Yes, it is quite beautiful. Is it Marek's work?" The greatest painter in the kingdom would obviously make room to emblazon the halls of the palace.

"No, it is mine." The Queen whispers, smiling at the obvious look of surprise I give her. "Many turns ago, mind you." She touches it, traces the wall before us.

"I know that what I say is merely my words, but if I may, I would like to give you some wisdom."

"Of course."

She turns and leads me into a massive room. I stare at the golden light, at the radiant lines that catapult over everything, coloring the air itself in a honey hue. The Queen removes the crown from her head, and sets it lightly on a stand at the edge of her desk. I realize mutely that this is her bedchamber.

"I want to speak to you, not as a Queen to her subject, or as the mother of your mate. I want to address you as someone who would have been your friend had we grown up together, as myself, just Rhainn."

"Okay."

She smiles regarding me. "Thirsty?"

I suddenly am, very. "Yes, my Q-" I catch myself when she angles her brow at me. "Yes."

The glasses she pours are carved and beveled and refract the light as she fills them. She hands me one and sips from her own. "Quinn is difficult."

I cough on my water, inhaling rather than swallowing. When I'm able to strain my words out Rhainn is laughing. "Yes, she is."

She pats me on the shoulder and squeezes it with a grin. "Good. I'm glad you are honest with me. Now, tell me what happened."

I shake my head. "It is embarrassing for me, because I thought Quinn and I had progressed to a point that we clearly had not and my humiliation was the reason I left."

Rhainn nods, finishing her water. "Everything that happens in this palace is common knowledge. You certainly know there is no privacy here. To be fair, I know exactly what happened and I'm sorry."

I'm not mollified in the slightest by her words. "I wish that weren't the case, because that is very hard to hear."

"I tell you that simply because as soon as it was made known what happened, it was the first time in a very long time I had seen Quinn so hurt and upset."

"What do you mean?"

"As a child, she was seemingly fearless. When her wings started growing in, she would take flying leaps from windows in towers. I can't tell you how many times she tore turns off my life doing things like that." Rhainn laughs pouring more water and I listen silently, imagining it. "However, there was one time her father was flying with her and she pulled away from him. He very nearly lost her and Janus dove to protect her, and was hurt himself."

"I'm sorry."

Rhainn fixes me with a stare, remembering. "When we finally found them, Quinn was crying. She was so hurt and afraid, so ashamed. She didn't speak for days, she locked herself in her room and cried endlessly over the whole thing."

The story makes me feel badly, and I can feel the sting of tears again in my eyes. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because Rachel, it's the same way she was regarding you and her trespass against you."

I frown. "She doesn't trust me."

"She doesn't trust anyone, and unfortunately that is a viable trait as a Queen."

I blink at Rhainn, understanding. "Well, she shouldn't have said what she said."

Rhainn nods. "I agree. It is hard for me, because I understand both of you very well." She points at the chairs beside her empty hearth and I join her there taking a seat.

"I say we would have been friends because I too am an artist, a romantic. I'm passionate, and unflinching in that belief in love. I understand what it feels like to have a fantasy of what life will be like and have that image torn and crushed by others."

"But not by those closest to you."

"Of course by those people," Rhainn comforts and then laughs softly, "the people that we love are the only ones that have the power to hurt us. Please tell me you understand my words."

"I do."

"On the other hand, I know Quinn as well. How fragile and yet brave she is, and how much she really does care about you Rachel. She is less overt than you and I, but it is there as plainly as anything I can see or say."

"Is the King like that?"

Rhainn rolls her eyes. "No, he is very overt about everything, playful. He isn't a romantic and never will be, but he makes me laugh and smile and that has become the fantasy that kindles our love."

"Quinn isn't like that at all."

"No, she is much more serious. It is my fault, because I have known since she was born that she would be Queen, and I didn't give her the chance to grow into anything other than a future ruler."

She sighs heavily. "It is _my_ trespass that creates the pain you feel now."

"How is that?"

"Because my daughter is losing herself to you, and to let that go - that identity as a solitudinous fearless ruler, is hard for her. She doesn't want to feel dependent or incomplete on her own. It was likely as hard as you coming to terms with the idea that you would have to one day rule this kingdom when all you wanted to do was be a child."

I try not to let the words of Rhainn make the pain in my chest less painful. "You said you could see plainly that she cares about me, what is it you see?"

"Certainly you have seen it, or you wouldn't have been as sexually invigorated as you allowed yourself to get last turn."

I wince, that sentence easily becoming the most uncomfortable thing I've ever heard anyone say to me. It doesn't take long for my blush to start and I stare at my glass willing for it to fade. "True."

"Rachel," Rhainn whispers, pulling my eyes to hers, her hand squeezing mine a moment later. "Don't write off your affection for her yet, not now when hers is finally blossoming."

"Okay I won't."

"Good, now I have one other thing I need of you before you can rest."

"What is that?"

"I want you to make an entry into the Records."

"The Records?"

She nods and moves past me, leading me to a massive book. It is easily half my size, and as thick as my body. As I near it, I make out the perfect scrolling writing of the Queen on the pages. I stare at it, wonder over it as I read her flowing hand. I center myself before the stand it rests on and let my finger travel over the entries. "May I?" I grip the corner of the page.

"Yes."

I flip backward in time. The turns reverse, and I see records from before I was born, before Quinn, before Gregory. Then the writing shifts and is much darker. I stop and look back at Rhainn while my hand hovers over one of the older entries in a different script.

"That was the day Quinn's grandfather stepped down. He was quite ill and wanted the people to remember him as a strong man. He wrote of him passing the crown to mark the start of my rule."

"How old were you Rhainn when you took the throne?"

Her eyes are distant. "Thirty one. I was one of the youngest in quite some time."

I return to the book and travel back until the throne passes out of the hands of the Fabray family and into the lineage of the tyrants. I go further back, hundreds of turns, page upon page. And when there is no more parchment, and I'm back at the beginning - it might as well be the beginning of everything.

I can't even read the writing, it is faded and written in a language I don't understand. I look to Rhainn and she takes up the place beside me, her fingers traveling the writing. And on this first page, her hand is ten lines long from tip to palm. I don't know why I count them, but I do as she traces the words and reads.

My hand is ten as well.

"It says, this is the Record, the Rule. It proclaims this book is the beginning of all and the end of all things when the ink runs dry." She puts an arm around my shoulders and traces my hair near her hand. "All Queens and Kings must write here for the preservation of our people's history."

I lean into her side as she casually pulls me closer. "The first entry says, the Goddess ripped from the war torn world our city, Winland. Much of it collapsed, but Winland survived in ruins. We begin rebuilding by framing the erection of a monument to the Goddess."

"The temple?" I whisper.

"I would assume."

I look up from the words. "Why do you want me to write here?"

"It is important for a future queen to put her stamp on history."

"But why must _I_ write here, Quinn will be the Queen?"

"You will as well."

"I didn't see Janus' writing."

"He cannot write, he doesn't know how."

I blink at her blankly.

"Yes a King who cannot write. You must see Rachel, we all come with our weaknesses, our pains, the things we fear about ourselves. And we make each other stronger, together." Rhainn kisses my temple, "you are standing at a crossroad in your life whether you know it or not, and the direction you choose will be recorded in our history."

She flips the pages forward in silence, until the book reflects writing very familiar to that which decorates proclamations and issuances, but is very different. It is the Queen's writing, but it is placed between hard dark lines of script. I read it silently, and when I'm done I stare at her.

"You wrote about the first time you left the city? It was to go to the Great Stone Face and scream from the top?"

"Well, not just for that, but that was what I remembered most. And for as young as I was I'm quite proud of it anyway." She smiles easily and gives me a squeeze. "I look forward to what words you use to mark your first addition to our history as a future Queen."

I stare at the pages. "What were Quinn's?"

"Oh." Rhainn flips one more page, smoothing the paper so I can read the writing before my eyes. It is marked only a few turns ago and she smiles at me gently, inclining her head toward the writing.

_1416/15/7 - I, Princess Quinn Fabray, left the palace today and set my feet on the land of my home for the first time. Unlike those before me, who went with their parent, I was there with my mate, Rachel. I believe we were fated to be there because there was a tower collapse when the binding tether broke, and I watched her rescue a young boy. I knew then, that the Goddess had chosen well for me and that the people will follow her. I was proud to stand beside her then and hope that I can grow to become the Queen she deserves for me to be, a Queen half as good as she will become._

I don't have complaint about Quinn after that, because I can't even breathe while I cry into the Queen's shoulder.

I don't know how long I stay like that; until I'm purged of all my sorrow and anger I suppose. It leaves me empty, and the Queen walks me to a bedchamber door. She doesn't say anything until we are before the door, and she opens it just like Quinn did so long ago. "I believe arrangements have been made for you."

I feel dazed, "what kind of arrangements?"

"Things Quinn wanted for you." She backs up a step. "Take time to relax and get acquainted. Tonight at dinner and afterward, we have much work to do. Your observations are right, we are preparing for war and there is still many things needing discussion." She ends it at that and with a kiss on my forehead, she leaves me.

I feel vacant and empty.

I press into the room that, like all rooms in the palace, has become so familiar to me, but yet is suddenly very different.

It smells like home.

I take a deep breath as I pass the table by the door and spread before me isn't the same heavy hard food that I eat while I'm here. The food that still makes me sick is absent. Instead are fish and light pastries like I eat at home; the berry tea that I love. I trace the glasses and inhale deep as emotion catches my chest.

I nibble a little, grateful.

When I pass into the bedchamber, there is large basin tub pulled in. That isn't so different, except this time, just like when I'm home in Emberlin, honeysuckle flowers dot the surface in vibrant colors. I kneel down and touch them, swirling my fingers through the fragrant water. I sigh heavily and close my eyes.

When I open them, they focus on a small slip of paper hugging the edge of the basin.

I flip it open.

_Rachel -_

_I hope this gives you comfort where I cannot._

_- Quinn_

I hold the slip in my hand, and when I look up from it, it's uncanny that my eyes fall right on my crown. It's sitting innocently on the bed, or perhaps not so innocently because beneath it is a shimmering purple gown.

It's a color only reserved for royals.

There is another slip of paper folded on top of it, and I hesitantly reach out to open it.

I touch the silken robes as I read.

_Rachel - _

_This color and crown isn't deserving of you, but it will try all the same._

_Yours with adoration,_

_- Quinn_

I crumple the note, because it's too little, too late.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Quinn 1417

I stare straight ahead.

Unwavering.

In the battle room, where my whole life passed before me I narrow my eyes in the firelight, mesmerized by the painting before me. It isn't just any picture; it is a picture of the only thing that matters.

Tossed in firelight, the colored image of the kingdom is highlighted to the most minute detail. Every plain, valley and crevasse, stroked out by Marek's brush. It is so much more than the running slopes and the cloud elevated city; to me it is the very real world that will be ours.

I trace the azure pigments of the great sea and Emberlin on the coast to the West to the black bolding of the jagged Arcash Mountains that seal away the human kingdom to the East.

All of it, Rachel's and mine.

I hope.

I cross my legs like I'm still a child as I sit before it, like I have so many times before. I do the same motions despite things being so far different, so far gone out of my hands I can't breathe anymore with the thought of it. However, somehow this painting had always reaffirmed the role I would play in life. I look to it now for support, and instead of greedily imagining my success, I think on other things.

I have seen the piles of papers, the dripping wax seals that stamp themselves across the desk of my mother; I have learned all I can of economics and power. I abandoned my fluffy dreams of childhood and replaced it with far too much knowledge of war and strife far too early in my life. I have rationalized the similarities between the cling of mining picks and swords crossed in combat; understanding that all it takes is one of those to conquer a world.

All of my knowledge honed from a very young age, because it was never too soon to begin the road toward greatness. History, strategy and tactics have filled my days and even as a young girl who once sat in this fading light, I had willingly let whatever naivety I had go.

As a future Queen, I had no right to hold onto it.

I'm content with that, as I always have been. Just as my mother before me, I'm content knowing that even though I will never be able to look at the world without the pang of concern, my sacrifice should allow for others to enjoy the unfettered pleasures of life. I'm fine with being a full blooded royal who will bleed for my people.

It is humbling though, thinking about Rachel. I'm awestruck by how painstakingly she walked into this world, and yet how easy it was. She might not have been born to it, but I'm baffled by how well she fits the duty before her. She is the strategist, the warrior, and the elegant dark counterpoint to my stumbling attempts at royalty.

In these quiet moments, the realization washes over me and leaves me aching.

It hurts me so very deep.

I stare at the painting again, thinking back on all the things I know and yet for all the study, there are many lessons I haven't learned.

The primary of those being, love.

It surprises me even as I think it, because I know I have a heart. I press my hands to my chest in effect, feeling the skin and silk there. I know I have one because it beats, it twists with pain, it exists.

And yet, I don't know if I have ever loved anything in my life.

I want to believe I love my mother, but as I've grown, I realize so much of my life was spent standing in her shadow and trying to rise above it, all I did was idolize. My father as well, to a lesser extent. Gregory was impossible to love, if just because I knew he would exploit it. I list through everyone else I know, and I can say while I care for them, I don't love them.

I didn't know what love meant, what it felt like.

What it would mean to me, and what the lack of which would do.

Until now.

It's unsettling.

And even more unsettling is what has been unlocked by her. I mean it not only in the emotional aspect, but the other part.

The magic part.

I have no doubt that the explosion in my bedchamber was my own doing. I have heard the story, I know the tale of the Thursian Winlean that took a mate and destroyed the lower quarter of Winland. I'm not an idiot, despite much activity to the fact.

I know it was my fault.

This phantom war we prepare for, is brought by my own hand.

And I just can't let that happen.

I have been very terrible in letting it go this far, letting the lies go for so long. It isn't just my own; it's the Inquisitor's as well. He lies for me, saying that the damage was brought by a catapult. That he divined it.

Yet, all I can see is concern in the gray of his eyes, because he knows it was me.

I blink away my thoughts, focusing again on the image of Winland. For the betterment of my home, I have to speak the truth. That is the only right answer and it is so abundantly clear.

When the door opens behind me, I rush to my feet. It's the Inquisitor and I swallow sharply at the expression on his face as he closes the door tight behind him. "Princess, did you call an audience today to tell the Queen about your magic?"

I swallow. That wasn't the only reason. "Not entirely."

He eyes me critically, I can feel it. "Then why else?"

"I'll have to declare myself a Crown Princess, before I tell everyone the truth, since I'll have to hand over my throne."

"You are not truly mated, the Lady rachel would never let that lie go. And Princess, you can never tell anyone the truth."

I open my mouth to speak, to refute him, but there are so many secrets between us already it seems so utterly pointless. "I only want to tell one last lie. I can't let our kingdom go to war, if I let it I'm no better than him." I don't have to preface further and I glance over at the painting instead. "Rachel will be a far greater Queen than me. We all know it, even if we don't speak it. And after I say we've mated, whether she refutes it or not, she will be next in the line of succession."

He is quiet for a very long time, so long in fact, I forget he is with me. "Princess, I will go to my grave saying it was a catapult, because your people will do more than ask for your abdication. They will kill you. Your people will kill you before they let another mage exist in Winland or anywhere else for that matter. I care too much to watch you die."

His words tighten my chest until my heart can hardly beat with the idea of it. I nod silently, looking down at my shadow in the firelight. It writhes and dances. "None of us will ever recover from the damages done in the past. The Mage War, the overthrow, the pillars of blood that poured from the city - how could anyone ever recover from that?"

If I have no life to live anymore, it is better now to tell the truth - when Rachel doesn't love me. When I can be thrown from the city in a punishment that will punish no others. "It's why I will say what I have to say today."

"And what makes you so sure the people will accept Rachel in your stead and not Gregory?"

"Because you will be here to ensure that they see reason."

"What makes you think that your divulging and death will end with you? Who's to say that the bloodshed that begins with you doesn't end with my death as well?" He frowns, I can see it out of the corner of my eye. "I have seen this future, Princess. It is filled with nothing but civil war and strife. You cannot do this. You must keep this secret and allow the war to come."

I turn to him, angered. "There is no need for war! No enemy we need to fight! There is just a parade of inquests that yield nothing because it was me! I did the damage, and a phantom catapult that leaves no trace will not change that no matter how many times you say it."

He narrows his eyes at me. "All of our time runs thin, because a war will come, Princess. Perhaps not today, and not on the back of a catapult, but it will come"

I swallow. "Someday, perhaps, but I cannot, and will not, keep myself safe at the expense of my kingdom and the lives of so many people if civil war happens."

"You will lose nearly everything you love if you walk the path I'm telling you to, but it will preserve more lives that it will destroy. As a future Queen, you know what the right choice is."

My eyes waiver, because I've never heard anything farther from the truth. "Do I?"

His voice is cold when he answers. "You must. Your mate and your kingdom hang in the balance."

* * *

I'm not able to have my audience, and perhaps that is a good thing. I stay silent, rotting with my secret, lying by omission just as the Inquisitor suggested. It isn't from lack of resolve that I miss my speaking in the throne room.

It is because a letter arrives.

While the Ivory Throne my mother sits on is the heart of the kingdom, there is another place even more hallowed than the silver dripping walls of the throne room.

It is the Ivory Tower.

Just as Winland was torn from the land and raised, so too was the massive white tower. I read once somewhere that the Goddess herself reached down and ripped it from the earth, pulling it's sterling facade upright until it touched the clouds. Some say that the Goddess still roams the passages. That the letters are written in her hand. That it is her summons personally to receive the message from the tower. I've never seen one before.

I had never seen one before.

However, right before I was set to walk into the throne room, it arrived. Twined in silver thread so thin it should have broken, it said everything and nothing in a single word.

Meet.

And that was all.

No date, no time, no indication as to where. However, my mother had immediately risen from her place, and left. I'd never seen her do that before and it did more than leave me with a cold sinking feeling.

It made me worry that the Inquisitor's words were right.

* * *

The following day, I'm summoned to the throne room. I try to pretend I'm not petrified by it, that I'm not fearful that my secret has been discovered. When I approach the double doors, I see Rachel is there alongside my mother and father.

She doesn't look at me as I approach.

"We must hurry."

"Where?"

"To the tower."

I don't understand how we are supposed to hurry, it is a three day flight - easily. However, silently and dutifully I follow my mother through the hallways deep into the palace.

"Shouldn't we be leaving?" I ask of the figure before me.

"We are."

I frown and when Rachel looks back at me, my expression darkens further.

We head toward the center of the palace, moving quickly through hallways that slope downward until I feel like we must be in the center of Winland itself. We pass through doorways with no keys, that unlock at a touch. Where the hallways narrow because the walls are the thickest. And that is when we pass into the room with the orb.

It paralyzes me. Seeing it. I thought it was a lie, I thought it was just a story, but no - it's real. Seeing the hovering, pulsating sphere in the brightest blue I've ever laid eyes on; as blue as the rings in Rachel's eyes, steals all my thought. I almost hear it humming, singing to me. When I look at Rachel, she is mesmerized by it too.

And in the blue light, I see all that I've lost.

"You must think of the Ivory Tower." My mother whispers as her hand slides down my arm and takes mine.

I hesitate a breath, ripping my eyes away from the beautiful woman I love from a distance wider than the world. "What happens if I don't?"

"Bad things." My mother warns, and she touches the wash of blue light.

I think of the tower, of the dais in the center. I imagine the obelisk I've read about and the onyx floor that seethes with life. When the air ignites with a snap, I open my eyes to the scene I was imagining.

"By the Goddess." I whisper, dizzy. "It is a portal."

The Inquisitor appears a moment later, and when he spreads his wings and launches away carried by the shadows of his wings, I flinch.

"Yes. There are a few scattered throughout the kingdom." My mother pulls me toward her and after an eruption of light, Rachel and my father appear.

My mate clearly looks overwhelmed, but after a moment of collection, her eyes meet mine and she reins in her composure enough to move past me without a word.

I follow her with my eyes until I realize from my vantage on the dais in the center of the tower, I can see terrace after terrace. Outcroppings hundreds of rows high, each housing a family of privilege in our expansive kingdom. The circular room, is jagged walled and carved in long spiraling designs from a time long before my life.

"It is important you sit, Quinn." My mother says softly.

And I do, though after much time has passed I realize for all the opulence I would have expected more comfortable chairs.

I shift for seemingly the thousandth time in my place. Beside me, I hear Rachel's robes slick over her legs as she does the same thing. I have no doubt she is as uncomfortable as me. Most likely more so, with the eyes of the entire Kingdom on her. I imagine her father is somewhere above us, looking down on his daughter.

On me.

I wonder if he knows how horribly I have treated her. I glance at Rachel, and she frowns without turning to me, obviously signaling to me she sees me looking at her. I orient back on the Inquisitor, as he takes up the center of the dais before my mother.

It has gone on for hours now, all the families summoned each taking the opportunity to discuss an ailment. I don't understand why such a spectacle was orchestrated to have people come as they always do to the throne room.

"The House of Warren." The Inquisitor calls out and his voice rings for seemingly an endless amount of time.

The meek looking man that approaches the dais, bows and speaks hurriedly. "My Queen and King, Princess and Lady, we seek your audience and counsel in a grave situation."

I keep my face steady despite the melodrama of his words. The Warren's are the ruling family that controls a small segment of the southern coast.

"Yes?" My mother prompts.

"Our resources and soldiers have been taxed, by a group of pillagers that have pressed the advance from the Fringe. We are concerned that they are attempting to reclaim their land by occupation and they have already toppled one of the old Thursian towers we were using to fortify our position."

I glance at Rachel, when his eyes go to her.

"And what would you require to push back this assault?"

"We would need at least one hundred thousand gold and double the amount of grain normal to properly train and feed our soldiers."

My mother sighs, "my heart bleeds for your people, how long has this trouble been tearing apart your home?"

"Three seasons already, my Queen."

My mother nods, leaning toward Rachel. "Lady?"

Rachel, the paragon of proper etiquette, bows her head before meeting my mother's gaze. "Yes, my Queen?"

"The towers of your people, how hard are those to topple?"

"Very hard, my Queen."

"Would you say it would take ballista to crumble them?"

Rachel nods with a smile. "I would say ten fold of them, my Queen."

My mother nods satisfied. When her gaze settles back to the Warren family's emissary, she smiles at him unsettlingly. "Tell me how it is that a ten fold of ballista have just now been brought to my attention after three seasons in my kingdom?"

When his eyes go to me, I prompt his words with an inclining of my head. "Perhaps not that long, my Queen."

"How long exactly then?"

"Very recently," he backtracks.

"And the tower?"

"Crumbling, but resolute, my apologies for my poor choice of words, we need assistance."

"And you will have it, but not through subversion. Ten thousand gold and double the fruit stores and meat, since I know it is the cold season that will cripple you and it is food you need, not coin."

"Thank you, my Queen."

"You are welcome."

It continues through three more families, all of them careful about what they say. I don't blame them, my mother is far too smart to trifle with. When the tenth or so family is announced, my mother raises her voice, standing from her position.

"I will seek reprieve for a moment, and as my father before me, allow the Queens who will follow, decide in my stead." My mother turns to Rachel and I lowering her voice to a whisper, "make sure I have a kingdom left to rule when you are done."

I blink blankly at Rachel and stand from my place behind my mother's seat. My whole body groans in anger over it, stiff from the seat I was just occupying. When Rachel joins me, I glance at the single chair. I see my father is still sitting, and his bemused smile is far too happy for his own good.

"Lady?" I offer her the place at the head of the kingdom.

Rachel gives me a look then, but takes it after only a moment's hesitation as I hold the space beside the massive high backed seat.

When my eyes fall to the Inquisitor, he clears his throat. "The Family of Theoren."

I swallow tightly remembering everything I can about the Theorens. They are from just outside Winland, rich, privileged. They control and charge subsidy for some of the fields were barley and wheat are grown and disbursed to the kingdom. Fortunately they were untouched by the destruction only a turn ago.

Rachel speaks before I can, and I'm content with it. "It is good to see you An'Theoren, in what do you require assistance?"

I have never heard her use speech like this, coded as it is. The proper address and addition of An, being a very strategic move since it puts him in a position of respect, without making him superior. How she said, assistance, like we are the only people who can help. How she spoke to him with a pleasurable greeting. Everything so utterly perfect and well crafted.

I'm in awe.

He sputters on his words. "My need for assistance?"

She nods lightly, "yes, clearly it must be something dyer for you to ask for address here instead of meet us in court like the local families do."

"Well, Lady, it was regarding the amount of the taxation versus the subsidy grant I provide."

Rachel smiles lightly, "a generous service that you do for the kingdom, the net amount of which is equal to all the taxes paid by everyone else here."

"And I give away my crop as well, which is above that of most others. The fields in use for disbursement to the Kingdom are fields I cannot use for my own mouths."

"Tell me, An'Theoren, because I want to be certain I am not misunderstanding. Are you saying that your people go hungry while the Kingdom recovers from a devastating blow that incapacitated many other nobles who were not as fortunate as you?"

"No."

"Then am I correct in assuming you are wishing to provide less land for the public production of the food sources for the kingdom?"

"Y-"

Rachel cuts him off softly, and he stops speaking when she begins. "Food sources that without which could cause even further shortages of grain in the mountains and in the south?"

There is a murmur that spreads through the room.

"No." An'Theoren says quickly, "my apologies because this was perhaps an ill timed request. I see your point."

Rachel nods slowly with a smile. "No apologies are required, but I thank you for your time."

It continues like that for some time, as Rachel and I take turns dispatching the problems of the realm. There are good things too, like giving the Marco family money toward their restorations of the Thursian towers and commissioning the painter Marek to create a book of his work to be displayed in the temple of Winland for all to admire.

When I finally notice my mother standing in the shadows of the tower, she nods at me, a very slow smile spreading her lips. And I understand exactly how she feels, because when I look at Rachel, I feel the same.

Pride.

The last family approaches the dais and the Inquisitor calls out their name. "Morade."

The name tickles with familiarity from long ago and when I look over at my mother, she has just whispered something to my father. I can tell, because her eyes are bouncing back and forth over his face. She looks concerned. I didn't even realize my father left.

The man that takes up the place before Rachel and I is easily the most haggard looking person I have ever seen. His face is deeply scrawled with scars and wrinkles, hair mottled with white. When he takes a knee, in the fashion of the old and deeply respectful, I feel the urge to help him to his feet with how terribly painful it seems.

"Lady Rachel, Princess Quinn, I would not come and trouble the halls here without good reason."

I agree, by just look alone. It is obvious to me that this Winlean would endure much before bringing word to the fact. He looks very pensively from Rachel to I, and then back again. "I believe something has happened at the Arcash mountains, and I wish to ask for the army of the kingdom to come."

His words set the room ablaze with chatter, and as hesitant as I am to admit it, my skin prickles under the directness of his words. Perhaps this is why the letter came from the goddess.

I stare up as the terraces seem to writhe, the shadows threatening. I swallow hard to clear my voice so that when I speak it will be steady.

"An'Morade." My mother whispers, and the room quiets. When she joins us, I'm grateful for her presence. "Tell me, old friend, what do you speak of?"

He rises from his knee. "My Queen, I lost a whole mine of Winlean in a blaze of fire when it collapsed. I've been around mines my whole life, I've never seen a fire, my lady. Ask your mate, the King, he knows."

I drag my eyes to my father. "It's true, but Morade, tell us why the soldiers should go? We can send you healers or equipment and able-bodied people who can assist."

"The snow is gone in Harkin's Pass, and that can only mean one thing."

I have no idea what the one thing is that he references, but something changes in the air, I feel it. I don't know what it means, but it is unsettling. When I look to my mother, she smiles at me. It's fake though, completely and totally.

It doesn't calm me in the slightest.

"An'Morade," my mother begins, "I understand your concern. The cold season was very desperate, so too has the heat of the sun been beyond that we have seen in recent turns. I have no doubt that this has caused the snow to recede."

He staggers a little, and as my mother continues speaking, my father who touches no one - holds him steady. I can see everyone's eyes on the Queen, but I watch my father instead.

He whispers something.

"As for the collapse, I will ensure that as the King offered, the palace will provide. We will send healers, and the able bodied to assist. This you have my word."

And An'Morade seems pacified, despite the aura of something much deeper going on. "My Queen, thank you. We will be grateful for your assistance."

When he turns and departs, I glance at Rachel. Her eyes are very distant, very thoughtful. The Inquisitor announces the end of the council and I resist the temptation to cover my ears as the rebounding echo of chairs scraping against the floor deafens me.

I'm still staring at Rachel when the sounds dwindle. This time she doesn't acknowledge I'm looking at her, she stands and moves past me without a look. She makes it to my mother's side before me, and I take up the place beside her.

"What did he mean that the snow is gone?"

My mother silences me with a simple motion of her hand, and I wait, confused until the only sound I hear is the steady breathing of us.

Then my mother turns to us, but her eyes are over my head, looking at my father. "Is he there?"

"Yes."

"Right." She finally looks at me, and the weight of concern in her eyes is utterly devastating. "Follow closely, as I think we now know why we are here."

I start moving at the same time as Rachel and despite the tickle of nervousness I feel, I allow her to pass before me. She does, tracing the Queen's steps. I follow them into the shadows of an alcove and nearly trip when the stairs come under my feet and run vertically. I pause, giving enough clearance that Rachel's wings aren't in my face.

They whip over me and I swear it feels like it is intentional, not that I don't deserve it.

My mother's voice filters over me from somewhere above my head as the walls crush in and we climb. "The fire must be lit, that is the only thing that would draw the snows back."

"But the fire in the mine? It doesn't make any sense." My father says.

"No, it doesn't."

"We should go."

My mother is silent for a long time.

When the stairs finally level out, I can't see beyond the figures before me. It appears to be some type of meeting room, as evidenced by the strewn drafts that litter every horizontal surface. I shift toward one, narrowing my eyes at it. It is of the kingdom, but not. It is much smaller, a third the size it is now.

When Rachel passes by me and taps her finger against it, right over the date I stand up. It's two hundred turns old. I must have looked very confused as I stared at it.

"My Queen." It's Morade again followed by the Inquisitor, and I focus on him as he enters from another adjoining staircase. "It has been a very long time since I have been in here."

"Not since my father turned the tower over to Janus and I many years ago." My mother notes and then sighs heavily. "You should have come to the palace, this is not the place to talk about what you saw. Did you want to cause a panic?"

He grouses, "my wings can carry me about this far and anything more than that and a corpse visits, not I." He furrows his brow. "Besides, Rhainn, I expect you to be a skilled orator. I wasn't concerned in the least."

"Enough pandering Morade, tell me, did they light the signal fire?"

The torn Winlean shrugs. "I sent my men up there to see, they haven't come back yet. That is the only answer though."

"What is?"

I don't realize I've spoken until every single face from my mother to the Inquisitor turn to look at me. I'm fairly certain no one remembered Rachel and I were here.

"We had an alliance with the humans once, the same way we did with the shadows from the Fringe," my mother explains, "and if the signal fire is lit, it means that they require assistance. That something is wrong. Harkin's Pass is not only a border town occupied by a local guard, it also sits below that signal fire."

"And the heat from the fire burns the snow away." I finish.

"Yes. Which means that we do need the guard to go, but Morade," my mother shakes her head, "I can't send the whole of the standing army. You know what that will look like."

"The start of a war." The Inquisitor finishes.

I swallow nervously and when I look at the Inquisitor, his eyes are vacant and hollow and hold mine with the horrible secrets we hold.

"You did offer healers and workers. Why not have the soldiers go dressed as that?" Rachel whispers, but it might as well be a scream with how quiet everything is.

"Brilliant idea Rachel; however, I'd rather confirm everything first, find out if the signal fire is lit. Morade, can you have someone send word?"

"Yes, but I worry they won't come back. It's the second group I've sent."

"Send us word if they don't then and we will send part of the army in disguise as suggested."

"There is a caravan of silver we will be taking to Winland in the next few days, I'll carry the message with them personally."

The deafening pressure of the words hangs in the air and crushes a ragged breath from my chest.

"I'll go first, calling it a visit. We shouldn't wait for a message along the caravan trail." The King announces to break up the silence. My mother stops him with a hand.

"There is too much at stake to go like we used to. Especially, if something is wrong. My place is here, and yours as well. We wait for word from Morade."

"Your place is here, I'll go alone." He states, and for the first time I hear an edge of contention in his voice.

"No."

And my mother's words are final.

Or at least, they should be.

They should be the final words on the matter, but by the time we make it back to the palace there is a cold stiffness between all of us. I know more words will be had, and I don't miss the parallel, how my mother and father land without a word, without a glance.

They do it just as Rachel and I do, and more words will be had there as well.

I understand his upsettedness, because he comes from there. The mountains and people are his people, his home before becoming King. And just as surely as he carries the loyalties to those brave hard people like Morade, so too does he feel engendered to do something about it.

Late into the night, I swear I hear them screaming at one another. And though I'm not a child, and I understand that some words take anger to express, it upsets me. It puts me into fitful dreams where the large blocking of the Arcash Mountains looms behind me even as I chase Rachel through green fields.

However, as always, she slips through my hands.


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Hi Folks. Sorry it took so long to update, I've been crushed at work and super distracted. Anyway, enjoy some Faberry face time. Next chapter is the end of Part 1... and it's gonna be a doozy. I'll get that out tomorrow most likely... in the mean time, I hope you like this.

* * *

Chapter 16

Rachel 1417

I spend the nights roaming the palace.

I walk slowly, touching the great shields that glimmer in moonlight or worrying my fingers over the threads of massive tapestries. I feel my way around the rooms, learning how they bend into one another; the curvature of the seat of the kingdom. It is only proper for a future ruler to learn everything about her home, both in the figurative and literal senses.

Though some lessons are so much harder to learn than others.

Bitter, like the taste of fruit ripped early from the vine. I hug myself as I move through the solitude of darkness.

I still can't believe that someday all of this, everything I see, will belong to me.

The hardest part of that knowledge being, this. This moment - as I press open the throne room doors, and they close behind me. Before me, the vast airy chamber is dark, but I know that it will not _always_ be. Someday, it will be full and all eyes will look to Quinn and I for the answers.

I take a breath and the sound of it echoes forever.

I know it is silly, but I can't help thinking that the very air I breathe is littered with the wisdom of rulers that have come before.

In the dimness, I trace my eyes over the arching marble and ivory that melts into intricate wax-like drippings of silver all the way to the floor. I follow the patterns over and over, crossing the buttresses and the golden kissed fresco above me.

The things this room must have seen, I think absently as I slowly trace my way toward the vacant thrones before me.

This room saw the Great War, the last tearing of the humans from our land.

It stood watch as King Salandis ushered in the last of the magic users and had them burned alive.

This place weathered the Mage War and subsequent rebellion that brought the Fabray family to power.

And now rises in testimony to what is arguably the best ruler to have been a part of history. The ruler that I will follow in the shadows and footsteps of.

I come to a stop before stepping up on the dais. I regard the seat of the kingdom, as I have done so many times and yet haven't. Not from this close, because I was never brought up to the status that is rightfully mine by Quinn.

I try not to think about the trespasses, not here - not in this place where I will lay down my life for the better of my people. The thought catches me, and I turn, staring across the long wash of darkness, tightening my arms.

My people.

I've never thought of them that way before.

When I turn back, when I see my future before me in the most literal of senses, I firm my resolve. My eyes touch on the engravings down the sides of the white seats. I read the scrolling in the ancient language, granting those that sit upon the Ivory seat the command of the kingdom and the wisdom to keep it.

"I will." I vow to the darkness and as my voice carries away, I take the steps slowly, savoring every moment as I move on the dais. I turn in a circle, letting the echo of my words bring cadence to the reality as I slide into the throne beside the Ivory Seat.

I lean my head back and regard the dark empty room and the unmoving banners that hang on the walls. If I close my eyes I can see it filled, writhing with the color and commotion of the courts I have come to expect.

And if I turn my head to the left, I can see Quinn there.

In my imagination, she is older. It must be the middle season because she is sun-kissed and her hair is lightened by the daylight she has been spending her time in. And it takes my breath away because she looks at me with gentle copper and green eyes and a smile just for me. When she reaches her hand toward me, I take it and hold it in mine.

It makes my heart hurt to imagine it because it will never be the reality. Though - as I stretch my hand into the vacant space beside me, I can almost feel her hand there, with mine.

"Lady Rachel," I hear a voice very close to me, and it shatters the moment. I bolt up to find Gregory standing before me, "getting used to your throne?"

I look back at the seat I was just occupying. "No, I was stopping to rest just a moment."

He turns to regard the Ivory Seat with a very bemused smile. "Who occupies the seat beside you?"

I don't understand what it is he's implying so I say nothing. When I go to move from my spot, he cuts me off by hopping up the step to stand on the dais with me. "Sit, please."

"No, I don't want to."

"I insist." Gregory grins at me, "I'm sure the Queen would like to know that you are already making your place on the throne when she and her mate haven't passed yet."

I swallow hard on how tight my throat becomes when he says those words. My palm sweat, heart races. "You wouldn't tell her would you?"

He gestures to the throne, and I slide back into it because I don't have a choice. Not with the way he's staring at me.

"You know, I've wanted to have a moment alone with you for some time. The mate of my sister is a very important person indeed. And we have so much unresolved bitterness between us."

I don't say anything because I know he is referring to that day with Quinn, and he must surely know I would do it again if given the chance.

"Shameful how silent you have become." He laughs, and it is a bark that resonates in the room. "We speak freely here," he raises his arms to gesture at the grand hall around us, "and every word will carry the weight of the world."

As his voice finally drifts into silence, I have no doubt that the words he speaks are true. It is far beyond the fact that he believes them, its because I believe them too.

I swallow tightly, "what is it that you wish to speak to me about?"

"Quinn."

"What about her?"

He scratches his chin and when he turns his head I see the sliver of the scar I gave him in the moonlight. He points a finger at me, "Actually it is just as much about you as it is her, so forgive the directness I ask you this."

"What?"

"Is she a crown princess yet?"

I stall the way my eyebrows shoot into my hairline. The audacity of the question is absolutely surprising. "That is none of your business."

He chuckles. "Lady Rachel, I apologize for offending you. Everything you do when you sit in that seat is known by the court. So, I ask again, is she?"

It is not just because the question he asks is one I find very intimate, it is also because there is something in the way he is saying it. Something with a glint of superiority because he thinks he knows the answer.

I clear my throat. "It is our discretion to announce that, and we will be speaking to the court on that when we are ready to do so." I try to look nonchalant insinuating Quinn and I have mated. I try to make it look like it isn't the exact opposite behind closed doors.

His face holds firm and I have no idea if he believes me. "So, you are neither admitting nor denying." He narrows his eyes. "Very shrewd and diplomatic of you."

I smile because it is a real compliment coming from someone as dangerous and calculating as him. "Thank you."

"Don't mistake me, I think it is a lie." He moves closer and stands before me. I hold his gaze as he lords over me, "I know my sister. I know how cold she is and I know she will only mate with you for strategy and she will announce it immediately."

I trace my finger over the armrest of my future seat. I soak power from the silver and marble under my fingers. "You don't know anything about your sister." I glance up to his face, to the hard lines in his jaw and the harder set in his eyes. "You don't know anything about me, about us."

He smirks and shrugs. "I know enough about the way you act and how she acts."

"What does it matter to you?"

With the speed of lightning he is leaning over my throne, hands beside mine and corralling me against the high back of the chair. He doesn't touch me, but he leans in close enough that I can feel his hot breath trickle down the side of my face and neck. It makes my skin prickle. "It matters, because I want to know who you belong to. I want to know if my sister is giving you what you need as a woman."

I lick my lips and dry them with shallow breaths. The very thought of it makes me sick. "I am satisfied."

He catches my eyes, the same hazel as Quinn's and they bore into me. "If you were mine-"

I cut him off, "I'm not."

And he laughs, softly, softer than I have ever heard him laugh. "Well, if I was a King, I would give you everything." His hand ghosts over the hair at the side of my face and I jerk my head away. "Shame."

"Do not attempt to touch me again, unless you want a matching scar down the other side of your face."

He just smiles, like my irritation and indignation is exciting. I force myself to calm and I hold his gaze.

"What if I told you that I know how alone you are, how alone you feel." He looks away, at the throne. "What if I told you that Alyssith is a tool for my pleasure, but you would be a Queen beside me."

"I will be a Queen beside Quinn."

"But unlike her, I understand so many things." His eyes soften, so much so that for a moment he is mortal and warm. "Rachel, you deserve to stand here, to be loved and anything less isn't the work of the Goddess-" he frowns as he pulls back, "anything less than everything is the work of a child that doesn't deserve you."

I don't know why, but his words pierce me and as I gather my breath he takes the throne beside me. I stare at his big boots as they cross at the ankle, his hand resting on the arm beside me. "When you first came here, I knew instantly that you would become a magnificent Queen. As the years have passed, you have just grown to prove that to be truth."

he turns his hand over, palm facing up. "I would defy any rule, any law, for you to take my hand instead of reaching for phantoms."

I glance up at him, at the earnestness in his face. "Would you?"

He smiles then, his hand moving closer. When he inclines his head toward the room before us, I look out across it. "I will, if you will do it with me. I want to show you who I really am, and perhaps you can mend whatever damage makes me so horrible in your eyes. Before I leave tomorrow for the mountains, I want something worth returning for." His hand strains toward me, "will you be that? Please tell me you will."

"No, I'm sorry. I won't."

He pulls his hand back slowly and I rush from my seat, feeling his eyes on my back, burning through me. It feels like an eternity before I make it across the throne room, before I'm at the doors.

When I open them, when I look back - I see Gregory cast in shadows with his head in his hands, a broken _almost_ King, with a kingdom out of his reach.

* * *

His words haunt me though. They prick every last drop of heart blood out of me until my tears are so free they path my face. I lay awake in the darkness, watching the sun come through watery eyes that make the image a star burst.

He's right in several regards. In my need for love and affection, in my loneliness and desolation. He is right that if I was another's mate, I would be loved how I want to be. I would be loved better, cherished and adored.

And what's worse is that I know I deserve it. I deserve to be standing on that dais instead of kept to the side, I deserve to be comforted, and kissed and held. I deserve to have joy in light of being bound to someone without my brother to witness it, without the people I love most able to be a part of that moment.

For my brother standing on a wall, ready to lay his life down for a kingdom that I will sacrifice my life for too.

It's all too much. And I cover my face before my emotion comes so hard I can no longer stop it. My sobs are all i feel I have left in the moment. They are my companion, my constant, and the wrongness of it takes second seat to the freshness of misery.

I cry until I have nothing left, until I'm a hollow shell purged of every last emotion. Then, sleep rushes in to pull a cloak of darkness over me.

But it only lasts a moment, before I blink my eyes open.

I don't know what wakes me, but I lay in bed unmoving as I stare into the pre-dawn haze.

When the tap at my door comes again, I lull my head to the side and stare through the antechamber at it. There is only one person who would come to my door this early and I know it's her because she is the only person audacious enough to think of doing it.

I lay perfectly still, hoping that she will go away, but when she knocks again I sigh, envenomed.

"Come in, Quinn."

I stare at the marble above my head and the way this angle of the light reflects a ghostly image of myself against the polished tiles. I look nearly as defeated as I feel.

Quinn's voice comes then, whisper soft as she opens the door. "Rachel?"

I refuse to look at her. The door closes soundlessly behind her. "Yes?"

"I'm going soon."

She somehow convinced the Queen to let her go. Her and Gregory both with the King, off to Harkin's Pass with a quarter of the Royal Guard. I think she says the words to bait something from me. As if, those words will make the wellspring of affection I once felt for her come swirling back like the tide.

"I know."

When she shifts closer, I hear the unfamiliar sound of her footfalls in boots and I turn to her then. My eyes fall on her face, pensive and yet so very regal. I've never seen her hair off her shoulders before, and I stare at the way it is twisted up and tucked behind her head in a knot. It makes her look very different, almost like she isn't the girl that broke my heart.

The clothing she wears as well completes the picture of the stranger that moves through my room, With boots laced to her knees, rough hewn pants and a shirt the color of the forest.

I wonder if she realizes she wears my colors. Does she know she's wearing the same forest green that signifies my home?

I don't know why, but when she comes to a stop, for a breathless moment she is just a girl. A girl that could have grown up with me, if not for the lightness of her. Perhaps she would have been someone I could have fallen in love with in a casual normal way; in a way that wouldn't have been laiden with the weight of a world crushing it.

I roll away from the image of it.

"I should be back soon."

She sounds hesitant. I'm glad for it.

"I didn't ask."

"I know, but I want you to know that we will take two days to get there and once we know if the signal fire is lit, I will come straight back."

I focus at the sky outside the window, the way it hangs heavy with the gloom. "Okay."

She draws closer, and it is too close. I can feel the tingle of her, and I pull the blankets up around me as she stands in silence.

"Rachel?"

I wish she wouldn't say my name. I wish it didn't hurt to hear it on her lips.

"Yes?"

"I'm concerned by what we will find."

I don't say anything to that. Her concern is something surprising to me because it is so rare and fleeting. I know that what she is trying to tell me is important, far beyond the words she is saying, but I won't hear it. I just can't care; can't let it affect me as the Queen asked.

"I'm afraid."

There was a time where those words coming from her lips would have engendered emotion. To have her divulge something like that, to speak so candidly with me, was a desperate thing I yearned for. It was the sweetening of the space between us, the warmth that lead to real honest love and affection.

But now I have nothing to say.

I hear her take a breath to speak, but instead she moves closer.

There was also a time where the sound of her boots scraping on the marble and then the shift of the bed behind me would have set me on fire for her.

It wasn't long ago that I would have dreamt of her laying down beside me. However, as she does it now, I feel nothing. There is a vast emptiness walled within me. It doesn't matter that the Princess, my mate, is lying in my bed. It doesn't matter that despite my anger and shame, I still dream of her. I still remember her kiss and the feel of her in my arms, on my fingertips. It torments me, like a word I can't remember, but on my tongue enough to taste.

I hold my place staring at the golden edged clouds.

"Are you still awake?" She whispers after a time, close enough for me to feel a tremble through my whole body at her tone.

"Yes, don't track dirt into my bed." I'm actually shocked by how cold my words are and when Quinn shifts, I know she is moving her boots off the blankets.

She is the mean one, not I. Yet, she makes me so angry I can't seem to get past it. Quinn doesn't say anything, and I can hardly stand the quiet, the shame of my words.

She breaks it finally, freeing me from my callousness.

"Rachel, when I come back, can we speak?" She swallows hard enough for me to hear it. "I have things I would like to say to you."

I wish she would have severed the quiet with other words because they do nothing but bring crashing back the pain of our last conversation and it is so stark it might as well be happening in this instant.

It cracks my voice despite my best attempts at it not. "I don't think we have anything more to speak about."

To my surprise she doesn't refute my words, "I understand, but perhaps you could think about it. Please."

Her plea isn't missed by me. It's rare for her to sound so willing for me to make my own decision, and certainly it isn't said with such tenderness. I can't remember a time when she ever said please to me.

It settles my anger and the silence between us is interrupted by the sounds of the kingdom as it awakes. I can hear voices, hear children playing and the far off clang of wares being set up for sale at the market.

Within the room though, I listen to her breathe, listen to the even cadence of it. I can hear her move and it rustles the blankets. The whisper of her feather as her wings shift.

And the radiant heat behind me dares me to fall asleep. I feel my lids getting heavier with each passing moment and in that odd twilight place between day and night, awake and asleep, I worry about her.

My guard comes down just long enough for me to realize she leaving and my throat tightens painfully. "Quinn?"

"Yes, Rachel?"

"Promise me you'll be safe."

I think I feel her move closer, feel her hand touch my hair, caress down my wing. "I will."

I nod, delirious with the exhaustion of so many sleepless nights as a yawn catches my lips and her hand catches mine when I reach back for her.

I feel her breath across my cheek, and it sends shivers down me. She pulls me closer against the chill of my own heart thawing. I close my eyes against the contact of her solidity. "Sleep. I will see you soon."

"Yes."

She smiles, I feel it against my skin and my lips pull too in echo. "I'll stay until you are dreaming."

I appreciate it in a way I don't quite understand. "Thank you."

I don't know how long she is there, but I feel the final brush of her mouth near my ear and her words touch through me. "I'll miss you desperately, just as I do every time _you_ leave."

"But it's you going." I clarify in the haze of my sleep.

"Yes."

"I'll miss you too."

Her arms tighten and when she presses words into my heart, they are lost to me as sleep claims me. The only thing I will remember is how for the first time, it felt so good in her arms.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: I've waited for this chapter for a very long time, as I'm sure you have too. Hope it's as fulfilling as I found it to be. Finally, Quinn has grown up - and just in time as everything changes. So buckle up, cause the crazy shit is just now starting. Believe it or not, there is a ton of story still to cover.

As always thank you guys for commenting and being so wonderful. I'll need your support and faith as I unwind this crazy world toward a climax you won't even believe. :)

* * *

Chapter 17

Quinn 1417

It is a different type of air that cuts through my feathers. It is more dry somehow, and it bites into my eyes like sand. I don't know why I am so aware of it. Perhaps it's because my skin is covered; because I can't feel anything else anywhere else.

Other than the ache in my chest that grows the further I fly from home.

When the Captain speaks to my father, I turn to him, distracting myself from the burn in my eyes put there from emotion and not wind.

He seems older now than I remember him being when we used to practice in the courtyard. Or perhaps it's the seriousness in his eyes. He looks just as authoritative in the peasant outfit he wears as he does in his armor, not like my father who could be mistaken for a trader or a miner.

It makes me wonder if I look like something more than my future.

"Look below, my King. This is the caravan outpost I was suggesting we turn into a training station. The caravans pass right by because it is so close to Winland itself, so we are missing utility here. Not to mention, it's dangerous to have so much clutter of bodies in Winland."

From this high, I stare down at the stone circle as we pass. The walls must be tall because the entire middle section is shaded, even though the sun is still high in the sky. And just as the Captain said, there is nothing within it.

It is a hollow shell.

"What do you advise, Quinn?" My father asks.

I glance up at him, look him in the eyes, ignoring the way my brother's face twists in the background. I don't know what to say, so I think of Rachel. I think of what she would say, what she would advise.

"I would turn it into not only a training outpost, but a depot for the construction of ballistas as well. Having the manufacturing so far north, doesn't make sense - not when our kingdom stretches to the southern peninsula."

"Agreed."

I look back at the structure in the roar of afternoon sun. "I would have secondary food stores there too. It's ridiculous to have everything in Winland, in the advent of war."

"A wise decision, Princess." The Captain says, and I nod silently, glad that despite the years of back-breaking emotional vacillation, I _listened_ to her.

I learned her.

And I can draw on her strength even when she is far out my arms in both the literal and figurative.

"Do it." My father says. And it is done.

It's because I love her that I feel beholden to Rachel - and I want desperately to tell her what I've done, the decision I've made, and have her be a part of it.

I want her to be a part of everything in my life.

It seems fitting, as my life didn't begin until I met her. It's a realization I wish I would have made turns ago when that skinny little girl arrived wind blown and tired in the night. I wish I hadn't still been learning to love, and just starting to crawl.

I wish I knew then what I know now.

That thought torments me as the sun winds down behind me. To quell my pain I try to remember everything I've ever learned about the route we trace from my home to the mountains. In my mind, I can see the lines on the map in the Inquisitor's study. I focus on that, on what I do know as the whistle of a foreign wind fills my ears at the same speed my agony overwhelms my heart.

We follow the packed grassland to the Great Stone Face, and the red vertical sandstone that makes up the crag. I trace my gaze down into the chasm cut in the heart of the rock, a treacherous winding pass that only the brave or foolhardy would ever navigate by foot. At the top, we climb higher, race over wild growth and a wash of verdant trees in greens of every color.

There is another cliff, another high mountain crag. There we stop and make camp for the night. I can still see home, dusted into a small shadow against the horizon like a dream. I stand at the top of the cliff and stare into the twilight at it.

I think about Rachel as the gray outline of Winland begins to disappear into the night sky. The pang in my chest is something very deep now that I have nothing to focus on; the pain of distance, of missing her - sharp like a sword's edge.

I can't imagine what it will be like after the harvest. I can't imagine how desperately I will miss her. How empty everything will be. I don't want to imagine the long cold season and the thaw without her.

"Quinn?" My father moves in beside me. "Are you holding up well with all this travel?"

I nod, not letting Winland out of my sight. "I'm fine."

"I'm sure the caravan will turn up."

He must think I'm pensive over that. "I'm sure it will too."

"Good. There is food ready and we must make an early start."

He tweaks my ear, and I'm so surprised by the long ago motion it brings my attention to him. "It will be there when you get back." He smiles as his eyes soften. "_She_ will be there."

I firm my lips into a line and nod, trying so very hard to not have his words send me flying right back to the shadowy world disappearing before my eyes.

Because that is all I want - to return to her.

I had fought so hard to come along on this trip, to see the truth first hand. It doesn't matter anymore. I know where my place is, and it's beside my beautiful future Queen. And without being there to fix things, everything feels so wrong.

"I know."

"Are you coming?"

"I want to look a little longer."

"It's amazing how things change, isn't it?" He laughs lightly, and shakes his head at me before heading toward the camp behind me.

I stand for a moment longer looking back over my city and when I can tear my gaze away, Gregory blocks my path. He regards me mildly, it is perhaps the first time I have seen anything mild in him before.

"Yes?" I prompt, exposed, hoping the gathering dark masks just how pained I feel because I don't have the capacity to hide it.

"I wonder something about you." He slides in beside me, taking up the position my father held. "Are you not a Crown Princess yet out of spite?"

His question makes me uncomfortable, because it had once been out of spite. Now it is because of a malice my own actions created. It drives the blade in my heart that much deeper.

"I don't think that is anyone's business but mine and Rachel's."

He doesn't say anything for a time, not until the city has vanished into the darkness.

"I think it is, both others business and out of spite."

"I think you don't know what happens behind closed doors." I counter, hoping that ends any chance of further conversation.

It doesn't.

"We'll, obviously not mating." He prods with a heavy hand. "The whole kingdom knows there is no love between the two of you. No announcement of that fact leaves the people worried, especially if what is feared comes to pass."

He has a point. A rather irritating and annoying point coming from him. It hurts me in a different way. "This is not a conversation for us to have." I leave it at that, because all I have are emotional words to say and I'm too tired to rally to fight him.

"I know things are," he chews his words, "fractured at best between us. But I still wonder if you would give up your crown and duty to avoid your rather unfortunate mate selection." He laughs easily, playfully, and the sound rumbles deep and fills my ears. "I mean, I would already have the title if the throne was mine to-"

I cut him off because the last thing I want to hear about is his sexual conquest of the very meek and sweet girl he is mated to. "But it isn't yours."

"It isn't."

I read a question in those words, despite the fact that his voice isn't saying it.

"Quinn?"

I narrow my eyes at him.

"I'm curious, would you give up your crown and your duty _for_ her?"

And I certainly won't answer _that_ question. His smile leaves me cold as I turn on my heel and join my father by the fire.

I eat my soup in silence while conversation buzzes around me. It is terrible and settles in my stomach like a rock, most likely soured by my thoughts as well as the consistency. I would give up just about anything for reprieve; however, when I glance at Gregory I retract my thoughts.

The Captain pulls free a small flute and I watch as he plucks fibers from the mouth piece. "Do you play, Princess?"

"No." I lean my chin on my hand, distracting myself with his careful motions. I remember the stark visual of Rachel singing under her breath at one of the festivals after having set down a very similar instrument.

He laughs and glances over at me. "May I have your permission to speak freely, lady?"

"Certainly."

"You are just as able bodied as you were when you were younger. I was skeptical that you had gone soft and wouldn't be able to keep pace with us."

"Thank you."

He gives me a wide grin, tearing turns off his face in the process. "I have to ask, is it true you once flew inverted at full speed through the temple door and out the top?"

I really don't know if I should tell the truth or not. I don't believe my father knew about that, with how he looks at me. It was stupid, I could have been hurt. Rachel could have been hurt trying to chase me so long ago.

I intentionally force myself to not think of the fact I did those aerial tricks to escape her.

"Yes, but it was only to prove a point."

"Impressive." The Captain looks at my father, "what kind of point was she proving you think, my King?"

My father smiles easily, his dark green eyes almost black as he looks at me. When I stare into my father's eyes, they carry a knowing that he and I share. They also seemingly share in my regret. His smile shakes away the melancholy that invades me.

"A dangerous point." He replies. And while he and the Captain laugh, I ease a smile.

"You know Princess, there is a tactic in battle, an old trick that you could probably do successfully."

My father scoffs. "Arkam, don't give her ideas. She'll get herself killed and then the Queen and I will have you in the prisons and not guarding them."

I appreciate how casual and friendly my father makes the conversation. I imagine what it must have been like, being a normal Winlean before discovering he would be King. I assume he spent many nights before a fire just like this, sharing in laughter.

I wonder if Rachel did before I stole the smile from her face.

"Bah," the Captain points at me, "you are not allowed to do this, but still I'm going to tell you."

"I understand."

"What you need to do is get into a dive and you have to be going fast, very fast." He shifts his instrument to the side and angles his hand steeply. "You head down until you can't go faster, typically takes about to the count of ten. Then when you see ground, you open your wings and push off with your legs."

My father shakes his head, "this is where necks get broken."

"Well, to be honest," the older Captain looks at him, "if you do it too soon, you break your legs. Too late and you break your skull. If you do it just right though, you carry enough speed to leave your enemies behind. In the best cases though it kills them instead."

I shake my head skeptically, "why would anyone do this? It sounds like more of a death wish than a survival tactic. I think my father is right."

The captain snorts, "you learned about the last great explosion of civil unrest, correct? Just before your family came into power?"

I nod. "Yes, Vilia the Vile. She was overthrown and the loyalists were banished out of Winland and beyond the outskirts of the kingdom."

The captain twinkles a smile at me. "Oh, you are good. So, at the end of that battle, half the loyalist army was destroyed in a maneuver like that. They followed groups of rebels who had been trained on that tactic and without mercy drove them face first to their deaths."

I image how difficult it would be to do a maneuver like that not once, but multiple times in succession. What skill that took to accomplish. It makes my games of chase from before very mild indeed.

"Are these tactics cataloged anywhere?"

The Captain blows a short note through his flute, "I'm sure somewhere, but mostly just passed down from one old soldier to a younger one."

"We should speak on this later then. I might need use of these skills." I'm still imagining it when my father hums under his breath and the Captain starts playing a stirring rendition of the song, Wings and War. And though I don't know all the words, I sing along with the ones I know and hum the rest as my misery is drowned out by many an off key voice.

I'm almost asleep when my father passes me a metal cup with a smile. I sniff it and realize its ale. I sip on it even though it burns my mouth and nose, and leaves my throat parched like I haven't drank anything in my whole life.

Gregory joins us then and perhaps it is the flowing drinks or the song or the sky, but he looks happy and calm. He looks like the brother I wish I had, like Ahmiran. And I understand why Rachel loves him so much, misses him so much.

As I sing through every song I know and share liquor with the men that have protected my home, I'm very grateful for the aromatic fire swirling inside me if just for stealing this moment with him. It makes me able to pretend if only for now, that my family is like any other.

It makes it possible for me to understand what Rachel gives up to stay with me and it makes the pang of missing her that much harder to bare. It makes my transgressions that much harsher.

I don't realize I'm drunk, not until I try to stand and my body doesn't follow my command. It doesn't bother me as it normally would because my father is laughing with the Captain and his men, and Gregory has passed out with a cup sitting on his chest. I force a laugh instead, make it real, until I'm laughing and I don't remember why.

"Alright, off with all of you. The dawn will be here far too soon." My father states, as he stumbles his way to his bedroll and collapses. I'm fairly certain he is asleep before he actually hits the ground.

I wait until no one is looking at me, until the flames are low in the fire, before I crawl to my bedroll of fur. It's on the ground, just as all my companions are and I pull the thin blanket over me haphazardly without even discarding my boots.

That is when my drunken stupor splays my heart open with thoughts of Rachel. The thoughts of her and Gregory's words blur together and I answer his question the same way I answered hers. I would give up my crown for her.

But this time I answer it with my whole heart, and not a flicker of doubt or fear follows it. I pull my blanket tighter, swallowing brokenly, wishing I could go back to that moment between us and correct it. I feel her, live the memory of breathing her in, and recount her words over and over until the sounds of nature are drowned by the singularity of my mate.

My love.

Everything becomes a blur of thought and feeling and I shift until I have some semblance of comfort, or I'm too exhausted to care anymore about my physical self. I keep my eyes on the sky where I know the luminous image of home is hovering and is just out of view now.

I send her my thoughts as I fall asleep for the first time under a blanket of shining lights in the sky. It is the best sleep I've ever had; because I remember this morning with her in my arms and she is with me as I close my eyes.

* * *

She is with me until the next morning when my father rouses me, then Rachel is the last thing on my mind.

The sunlight hammers over my head and shoots arrows of light in my eyes. Everything hurts, my back, my head, even my feathers hurt I discover as I stretch my wings. I scowl at the honey colored sky and with heavy arms swirl back my hair and tie it away to keep it from blowing in my eyes. I'm surprised I have the dexterity to do it, because for a moment I think I'm going to fall asleep where I'm standing.

"Princess? How did you sleep?" I can't even open my eyes, when the Captain asks.

"Like I never left home." I lie, pressing a hand to my forehead and temple, anything to shade my eyes and relieve the pressure.

I glance at him bleary eyed, and we share a rueful smile. "Princess Quinn, water will help." He snickers, "lots of water, because we have one more day until we are to the mines." he hands me a water skin and I stare at it, willing my stomach straight. "Keep your thoughts on home and your mate, it makes all the aches bearable. Just ask an old soldier."

I nod dizzily, making myself sick, and before I even steady my stomach, our camp is packed and fire is buried. There is hardly a trace of our staying by the time we take to the air and start toward the gray rock consuming the sky.

We stop at one more rest site along the trade route and when we find it untouched by a recent caravan, that is when the talk starts.

That night around the fire it spreads, with Gregory starting the worst if it, until everyone has a story for where the caravan is. At first, the concern is that they are broken down or injured coming down the mountain face; however, by the next morning talk has degraded to stories of mountain ogres and haunted passes.

Silently, I prefer those stories to the fears I have instead. Fears that increase the closer we get to the crags, sharp outcroppings that cut like angry teeth.

And by the Goddess, we are so close now.

The highest peak of the Arcash Mountain blots out the sun and the range is the only thing I can see in the sky. The headwind coming off the mountains burns my face with its coldness and smells odd. It tastes the same way it smells, like water and fire at the same time. It coats my mouth as I breathe.

"This is where they would lose a wagon if they were going to lose one." the Captain points down at a steep hill and the worn sharp turn at the base of it. "Too much speed and they go over the edge."

My father answers him, though the words were directed to me. His eyes mirror mine with concern. "I don't see anything there, we should head to the mine itself. We can trace the possible routes from there and fortify our position."

"Yes, I agree."

They both conspicuously leave out any mention of the signal fire.

I hesitate a glance back over my shoulder when a voice speaks up. It's a young soldier, perhaps even younger than me. "Captain and my King, maybe they never left?"

The Captain purses his lips, his eyes focused downward and giving clarity to the fears I've has since we left. "Maybe not."

* * *

When the first lick of snow streaks into my hair and clings to my skin before melting, I'm shocked by it. I touch my face where it dots water on my skin. The shift in temperature is almost instant. It goes from cold to chillingly painful. The frozen air gets under my clothing and burns across my skin. It makes my wings numb and chaffs the skin under my feathers. It makes it hard to breathe. It forces us to the side of the mountain, low to the ground to avoid the updrafts.

When the headwind shifts and cuts in from the right, it makes it impossible to fly straight. We are forced to the ground to keep from losing anything or anyone. I'm grateful for it, because I'm sore and tired, though I would never admit it if it was asked of me.

We climb then. Feet in boots for the first time in my life, I feel a distance with the rock I have never felt before. I am always barefoot, always feeling the marble and stone and the connection to my home. I feel nothing now. I don't know if the numbness is from the construction of the clothing I wear or the cold.

The snow gathers in crevasses and niches, dusting everything in a layer of powder. I see it on shirt as I reach forward to anchor myself against the railing wind. It reminds me of how the kitchen tables of the palace look in aftermath from the cooking.

My stomach growls in response.

We stop briefly and I tuck my wings tightly against my back. I try to coax heat back into them and my fingers by hiding them under my cape and clothing. I pull the hood over my head and while father talks to the Captain beside me, I reach into the satchel at my hip.

I packed Rachel's gift because I couldn't bare to be apart from it. It is the little piece of her I could bring. I free the silken cloth and shiver involuntarily from the warmth of it leaking through my gloves into my hands.

I pull back my hood and circle my head and my face with the lavender material until just my eyes show. I return the hood to its proper place. It helps ward off the burning cold, but only just.

"Keepsake?" Gregory chides close to me. "How precious."

I ignore him turning away.

"Should only be a little way up there!" My father points to the barely distinguishable path over the whip of the storm. I frown because it looked easier to traverse from the air. Now it is seemingly impossible. I most certainly have a new appreciation for anyone who can bear this over and over on a consistent basis. If there are any people in the kingdom that deserve to have privilege, it is these people.

People like my father. It grows my understanding of him and my world a little more.

The captain speaks, but I can't hear his words over the howl of wind.

I'm about to ask him to repeat himself when I feel a hand on my arm. It's my father and he leans in close to me. "Quinn, I wish you return home with the rear guard! I will find the outcome of the signal fire with your brother, and return a day behind you!"

I pull down the lavender silk, and the cold burns my lips. "Why does Gregory get to stay?" I shoot a look to his pleased smile.

"Because he will not be King. Your duty is to rule, not his."

"But there is no danger here!"

He frowns. "You will be Queen! Go home to your mate now!"

I had forgotten that with the excitement of everything. Rachel. I open my mouth to acquiesce, but the direction of the wind changes shoving frost and snow into my eyes and throat, sealing my voice away. It licks from the top of the mountain, deep and cold - ancient ice more bitter than I've ever felt.

When I blink it away, I see smoke, far too much for it to be just a signal fire. It races in a dark cloud toward us in the space behind my father. I do the only thing I can. I scream for action. "Everyone take cover!"

I think of Rachel then, and how she protected me in the fields. It's the first time on this trip I'm grateful she _isn't _here. I lunge for an outcropping of rocks before me. I duck down into a crevasse beside them, pressing the silk to my nose and mouth, keeping my eyes closed until I hear screams. Then I watch horrified as char and embers race over and past me, burning those still escaping. A few of the guards try to push off the mountain side to escape the debris and are swept down the side in a freefall to crash sickeningly against the stones and lay still.

"Quinn!"

I hear my father's voice some distance off. Someone coughs and chokes to my left, much closer than him. I peer for the figure, look for them.

"Gregory!"

"I'm fine!" My brothers voice is practically on top of me, but I can't see him.

"Quinn?" My father screams.

"Here!" I yell, choking on the dry smoke in my throat.

I hear words that tear a curl of chills up my spine. "Look sister, it is just you and I up here."

"Leave me alone Gregory." I distinctly hear a grunt from higher on the trail above me and slink deeper into the space I've taken refuge in. "Where are you?" I ask of him hesitantly, but he doesn't answer. The not knowing is far more frightening than the opposite.

"Stay where you are everyone!" I hear the Captain warn. "When the wind shifts, press forward to the princess."

"Yes, press forward and claim the only one of us that matters."

Gregory's voice is farther away and I don't say anything to his words. I don't think there are words to say in response.

I realize when the Captain gives his order that he is lower on the trail and on the opposite side from me. It must have been only Gregory and I that ran toward the smoke. We must be close to Harkin's Pass. I blink open my eyes and am blinded by soot and snow when I look over my shoulder. The scent of fire and wood is overwhelming, drowning out every other smell I can recall in my life. Swirling blackness races over the crags and rocks and in the filter of sunlight I swear I see the edge of Harkin's Pass and Gregory's back as he climbs toward it slowly.

I trace the formation of the rocks I'm wedged against, and if I follow them they will give me protection to the edge of the border wall between the human realm and ours. I duck down and scramble through the snow. Clawing my way up the path, I reach the bluff right before the steep shot to the peak. When I pop my head up briefly Gregory's eyes are staring back at me not even a breath away from my face.

I duck down quickly, swallowing my scream.

They are different somehow, even more hollow than before. "Stay where you are Quinn." I'm surprised by his words and how they seem to hold concern. "There is someone up here."

The words stop my heart.

"Get down here then!"

in reflex, I turn and grab for his boot now that he is standing. I miss the dark brown material as he steps forward and leaves me behind, blinded by char.

I scour the landing the wall is on, and my heart hammers when I see a dead lifeless face staring at me. It is as if the moment I see it, is when I can smell his blood and the acrid scent of his burnt flesh. It pours into my body and I cover my mouth as my stomach rebels. I refuse to vomit and instead I close my eyes and pull myself up the small incline. Behind me I hear my father scream for me.

For the first time in my life, I ignore him. When I stand, the wind shifts again and the air clears.

And what I see before me I know is an image I will take with me to the grave.

Harkin's Pass is destroyed. The wall lays in collapse, rubble and figures strewn in melting snow and muddy earth. The men scattered around me lay lifeless, burned so badly, I can't even tell what is their bodies or the rock beneath them. The only thing I can focus on is that many of their wings are gone, and when my eyes waver from that horror, my gaze drops to the man closest to me and his piercing red-brown eyes.

They aren't as pure as Rachel's, but it is enough to make me see her in my mind. I touch the silk at my face, while cleansing snow whips over and around me. I can see Gregory above me and I shield my eyes as I move closer to the rough face of the mountain. The snow cold stone burns my fingers and makes them hard to bend, but nothing bothers me as much realizing I just stepped over a figure charred like the last wood in a hearth. I try not to think about what I did just now, and how much disregard I had. I keep my eyes on the azure cut of sky above me and the sway of my brother as he climbs above me. I don't know what he is going for until I see a puff of smoke curl around the pass above me.

The signal fire.

That is when I realize there is no snow under my feet. I keep saying it over and over in my head.

I hear shuffling behind me, and my father screams my name again. The panicked whip in his voice is almost more frightening than the view around me. I look back over my shoulder and then up at Gregory.

Before they can get here, before they can stop me, I have to know what is happening. I have to see it for myself. The currents tear through me, trying to rip my wings off my body as I scale the vertical face. I catch up to Gregory quickly and eventually he is so close, he is just above my head. I grit my teeth and push once hard for the next outcropping so we can share the landing that leads to where the signal fire must sit.

I grab it. Look for wedging for my feet to properly anchor myself. However, my motions fall still when his boot rests lightly on my fingers. It makes my legs weak when I glance at the ground below me. His voice rumbles in my ears.

"How well did the Captain say you can fly again?"

I stare up at him, silent in my resolve. He adds enough pressure to make me cry at the back of my throat and the pain weakens my knees enough for my footing to slip out from under me. I grapple for anything I can, hanging by his weight on me. Anchored by the tether of his torment. The pain in my fingers shoots an arc into my head it hurts so much.

My voice is whipped in panic. "Stop!"

He leans down toward me, putting more weight, the rock slicing me numb. "You don't deserve the kingdom."

"Neither do you!"

"I would have it if you weren't here!"

"No, Rachel will!" I don't miss the fact that very deep down, I somehow feel that is a better outcome.

"Tell me you want me to be merciful!"

I hold his eyes, I won't give him the satisfaction of seeing me beg. Never.

He seems disappointed when I don't respond to the added pressure. I see his teeth flash in a victorious smile, but something draws his attention and he forgets me to investigate. He moves his foot and horrifyingly, as feeling comes back into my fingers so too does the weakness, and I lose my grip. I can't even believe what is happening as I slide off the edge of the rock I was clinging to.

Everything slows down as I scramble for the face of the stone falling away from me. As it trails out of my frantic grip I'm suddenly at peace with the idea. I don't know what it means. The wave of not caring I feel in this moment. That is - until I think of Rachel. She is right here in my flailing arms, her face, her voice making me promise to be safe.

Suddenly, I realize I'm falling to my death.

That I am going to break my promise to her.

And I can never allow a trespass against her again.

I hit one jutting edge with my thigh and the angle threatens to snap my leg in two. I cry out and scramble for the last small ledge. I catch it. My hand bloodies from the rock, but holds firm.

I wedge myself with my wings against the wall and breathe. I tell myself to breathe, don't cry, just breathe. I lift my leg before planting my foot again. I think it is okay, I hope it is. Everything feels numb, except the hate I feel in that moment. It consumes everything and as I look back up at him I curse him.

I curse Gregory and I wish he would die.

I scream it after him as he climbs the last bit before the break to the other side of the mountain. It is the first time I have spoken the words before. "I wish you were dead! I am going to kill you!"

"I don't think so, dear princess." He crouches at the top of the rocks above me, the wind so violent that his fingers are white as he holds himself there. "And just as I am able to climb up here and conquer this mountain, so too will I find a way to conquer you!"

"I dare you to try!"

"I look forward to it!" He laughs at me over the wind. "By the way, the signal fire is lit! The humans need us!"

The wind strengthens and despite my better judgement I reach for the ledge above me and pull myself up. I have to see it, I don't know why.

When I stand on ungainly legs I look over the rise of rocks. The pass spreads out before me and the circular basin of the signal fire rages half wedged in stone.

However, it is the scene beyond that which seals the breath from my chest. I remember a painting of the human world, it's rivers and lakes, forests and stone buildings jutting against fields. I had always wanted to see it.

What I see rise behind the signal fire is a dark horror in comparison and my eyes burn with tears. The images crash together in my mind as I view a world that smolders, runs in river of blackness that is edged in fire. Trees are felled, charred, twisted into one another like a careless child's hand has knocked them asunder.

I cover my mouth and twist my fingers in the silk Rachel gave me as I realize that as far as my eyes can see - there is nothing. Even the stone is gone, ripped apart into nothingness. My throat is choked closed, because though I never knew the humans, it truly looks like their massive proud kingdom has been besieged and destroyed.

When I can finally turn to Gregory his face is washed in the reddish light, reflecting the horror beyond the mountain. He looks so happy, so pleased in his evil, sick way.

"Everything is dead and gone!" He yells over the wind as char circles him. "More kingdom for me to claim!"

I hate him so much, as his lips carve those words, as he is back dropped against the writhing world. It makes my fury smolder, makes me dizzy with anger. I hold his eyes, until I see something at the periphery of my vision. A figure. I go to turn to it, to the blackness in the wash of fire. However Gregory's mouth falls open limply. It catches my attention, holds me captive as he spreads his wings like he is going to fly away. The wing is so strong it tears feathers out of him.

I don't understand what's happening, not until his eyes go empty of everything, until he is purged of darkness and terror, evil and cruelty.

And I watch the sick smile leave his face right as the scent of burned flesh blossoms over me and his wings ignite in a firestorm.

And then he screams.

And screams.

* * *

Three days later, I walk into my Mother's bedchamber while outside I hear her voice raise in alarm when father tells her what has happened. Gregory will never fly again. His wings and bones burnt to nothing.

His face too.

They don't know if he will live.

He kept talking about the end of the world, how it was burning, through melted lips. I don't think I'll ever be able to sleep again after hearing those words from his bloodied wax-like mouth.

And the figure. Gone, but he said he saw it too.

I go to my mother's desk, the massive darkened wood gleaming in the firelight, and grab her quill in shaking hands. I hear running footfalls outside. It sounds like the guards, perhaps they are rushing to find a healer.

I step to the Records, and I can feel the quill brushing my leg through the hole torn in the leather I wear. I didn't even realize I had been hurt until yesterday because I was so preoccupied with my fear. When we had finally stopped I was able to see the cut in my leg. I'm sure it will leave a scar as long as my hand.

A reminder of things I only want to forget.

It doesn't hurt anymore though, nothing does. I wipe the hair out of my face when I'm confronted by the page. I don't think, I just write.

I commit the moment to history so I don't have to carry it alone. I don't stop to read until the end. Then I read it over and over, wondering what the future Queens and Kings will think of me. I hope my words are good enough.

_1417 - I, Princess Quinn Fabray, left Winland to see if the signal fire was lit. I flew to the end of our kingdom and at the edge of the world, at the mountain peak; there I watched as my brother burned. The world was burning on the other side, too. We need to make preparation, because I know in my soul that we are next._

I stagger back as the words fall over me and drop the quill on the rug.

I want to stand resolute, like a Thursian Tower. Like Rachel. But all I can do is hug myself as I collapse to my knees under the weight of the world.

A world that I have no doubt will destroy everything I hold dear.

* * *

End Part 1


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: Hello again. I decided to work hard on this so you didn't have to wait very long. I'm glad the first part was enthralling and exciting. :) These next few chapters are a delicate balance of emotion for our future queens. More faberry, just as requested. :) So - who thinks it's time for a resolution between them?

I hope you enjoy the exploration of Rachel's marvelous world in Emberlin.

Oh, and btw - I have more written, I just need to edit it, so let me know what you think of this and if you want another update. ;)

* * *

Chapter 18

Quinn 1418

There was a time in my life where I wanted to see the sea. I wanted to stand in the water and taste the salt. I wanted to watch the sun slip below the endless flat expanse of glass. I wanted all of those things, but now, a shadow is cast over it.

We have to go to Emberlin, but it is to meet with emissaries from the Shadowlands. To see if we can forge an alliance with them in light of everything that has happened.

And so many terrible things have come to light.

The scouts we sent in secret over Harkin's Pass and into the human world haven't found a single human survivor. They traveled inward, deep into enemy territory and returned with horrific stories of what could only be described as genocide. Corpses, clothing in piles, looted goods and bloody stakes with all manner of limbs hanging from them. Things that I just can't think about or I will never sleep again.

Things that signify a conquest beyond that which captures land.

It is a campaign for total eradication, the likes of which I don't believe have touched this world before.

Here in the halls of my palace, eating beautiful food with my family, I can hardly stomach it. I feel like we should do something more than meet with a neighboring kingdom. We should take every single Winlean in our kingdom and storm over the mountains like an endless rain of salvation. We should do _more _and my discontent with our inaction drives me insane.

Across from me, Rachel is staring at her food as well, and I wonder if the nauseated look she has is from thoughts like mine, or because she is in such close proximity to me. Probably both. I stare down at my plate again, sickened with it, myself and everything in my life.

"Rachel?"

When my mother says her name, I look up at the same time as she does. I can see the mirrored motion out of the corner of my eye and I look at Rachel without really looking at her. Every turn she has become more beautiful, growing into herself and the role she will live. Now is no exception, regardless of the edge of tiredness and wear I've never seen before.

I've never seen her so very exhausted.

"Yes, my Queen?"

My mother looks worn as well, her eyes are tired even as they smile. She is smiling more these days for the show of it. She always smiles when things are bad, I've known it since I was a small child.

"Would your parents entertain us before we meet with the Ta'lak that come from the Shadowlands?"

Ta'lak.

I haven't heard that word in a very long time. It sends a shiver up my spine as I recall them, their heavily cloaked bodies and ability to stand before you and yet are invisible.

"My family?" I watch as Rachel swallows and I wonder what she is so afraid of. "Yes, I am sure of it."

But she doesn't sound sure at all.

If my mother hears it, she doesn't pay it attention and she glances at me. "I have a wonderful idea. Just as Gregory-" my mother swallows tightly, "spent time with Alyssith's family a few turns ago, your father and I will meet with the Ta'lak and you can visit with Rachel and hers, Quinn."

I flick my eyes to Rachel and the very unreadable expression on her face. It is most certainly the last thing I want seeing as we are not exactly on the best of terms, but I don't bring attention to the fact. I turn back to my mother. "There is no way I can come with you? I wanted to meet them."

"People will talk, it's best not to draw attention." It's Rachel that says it and though her voice has no readable tonality to it, her face is drawn in irritation.

"Exactly. It's hard enough keeping people subdued with the stories of midnight patrols when the scouts head to the Arcash Mountains. It will be something else entirely if both of the royal pairs are seen leaving Emberlin to go elsewhere. The two of you should generate enough attention to allow us to leave on other business."

I nod silently even though the woman I watch without watching and see without looking at, frowns so deeply I know I'm not welcome in her home.

I don't think Rachel stops frowning the whole time we prepare to leave. We send the letters to Emberlin and wait for the cordial responses as etiquette dictates. It makes no sense to me, not when it's the home of my mate. We pack satchels and gather soldiers. The soldiers fly out of the city as a decoy ahead of us. And when we finally leave, I look back at my home disturbed by the sight of the empty entrance to the palace.

Rachel must read my expression because she raises a brow at me, and I just shake my head to erase the image.

The flight is a long one, long enough that I wish we could have just used the orb to get there. I can't believe that Rachel has made this trek not once, or twice, but six times. It gives me a very different appreciation for her, one that makes all the meanness I've had, infinitely more mean. It is beyond the fact that I've been cruel, it's that she has put so much effort into flying right into my web of callousness time and time again. It's that she continued to follow through on her duty, even though she knew exactly what would happen.

I feel remorse for the little girl she once was and the grown woman that bares the invisible scars of it.

As the days drag on in silence, a silence that is only interrupted by the guards and my parents, I feel worse and worse about my past transgressions. By the time I can see the flicker of structures that must be Emberlin on the horizon I'm so utterly emotionally exhausted and spent, I don't think I'll be able to visit anyone.

I think instead there is a very good chance I might fall asleep and never awake again.

All of that changes when we actually get close enough to see the city and I'm plunged into a very different world than I could ever expect. In my mind I had built a gray, squat place that Rachel came from. A place with walls, with congested thoroughfares and beggars. I don't know why I imagined it like that. I don't know why the idea of a warrior race of people constructed a representation of people who were lesser than me.

What I see, I cannot even comprehend, because it is so far and away from what I imagined. The city that spreads out below us is one _I_ would write into a story if I had the words to do so. It is so magnificent, with its limestone arches and endless scrolling lanes of water, I look at Rachel in pure shock.

She doesn't meet my gaze.

I trace the massive columns that hang in the air, the rivers of flowers, the brightly colored populous. There are fountains, statues, waterfalls from archways and fringing of fabrics in colors I've never seen hanging from doorways. The shimmer and sparkle is everywhere, and the sunlight catches on everything, coloring it orange and cream, and hangs like magic.

I understand the stories then, of why her people fought so hard to repel the invaders. How they turned the ocean red with the blood of enemies who couldn't even get close enough to touch sand.

I would give my last breath to save this place as well.

It makes my emotions catch because I don't understand how she could ever leave here. It makes me ashamed, because her home makes the capital I covet so utterly bland and undeserving as the seat of the Kingdom.

Emberlin is easily the most beautiful place I've ever seen, which shouldn't be a surprise when I realize it is the home of the most beautiful Winlean I've ever seen.

When I look at her again, Rachel is finally smiling. It isn't for me though, those smiles are lost to me.

It's for her home, and rightfully so.

The pillars shoot up from the ground around us as we land, and I don't say a word. I can't. I defer to my mother when Rachel's father approaches. "An'Berry." She states softly, "as always your beautiful home gives a dramatic shock to the heart."

"You are too kind my Queen. I will just be a moment." He bows deeply and then with a smile embraces Rachel.

I've never seen her with her family before, not like this. It twists my heart to see it, the way her father kisses her forehead and little brother corrals her waist to hold her close. And when I see a very dark, very tall man run to her, I realize with a start it must be Ahmiran. He has the same burnished eyes as her, and upon impact with Rachel they smile as he spins her. There is so much love, so much for the woman who could have been mine. It almost chokes my throat to witness it.

It most certainly stabs at my heart.

I don't realize I have my hand to my mouth, until Rachel's smiling eyes fall to me and ice over as she regards it. In that moment I become very aware of the damage I have wrought, things that can never be undone.

And what I have done with words over the turns; she does in a look, in an instant as I watch her change. I witness what my words have done; what they have robbed from me.

"My Queen, King and Princess, please follow me." Rachel's father asks, and my guilt and shame are my companions as I walk.

The people flank us, bowing and smiling. They blow kisses and I wave to them. Their clothing reminds me of Rachel's from so long ago. It is bright and layered with the most beautiful patterns. It is a rainbow that lives and breathes and follows beside me.

It takes a while, but I realize every single one of them has etching on their skin, drawings of things. Plates of hash marks on men's chests, and the women wear it too, variations that are somehow more feminine. It scrolls across their exposed arms. There are even some that have lines on their faces. They are bigger than most, muscular even under the silk they wear.

I walk faster to catch up to my father. "They all have markings on their skin."

"The Thursian Brand."

"Is it paint? A tradition for celebration?"

"They are tattoos most likely," my father regards me, "hasn't Rachel told you of her people and her home?"

"No."

"Oh, well, they are tattoos. All mated Thursian Winlean have them."

"All?" My eyes shoot straight to Rachel and if they were any more intense I'm certain I would bore a hole through her.

My father laughs lightly. "Your mate most likely as well, though I imagine you would have seen it by now."

I don't laugh about that, because it makes me realize how little I really know about the Queen who will rule by my side. She must know I'm thinking about her, because when she glances back, that dramatic brown freeze pinning me, I realize it might not be from my side that she rules at all.

Rachel's home, which she had mentioned in passing once long ago, isn't a home at all. It is an estate, with rolling grassland and pockets of dainty white flowers. We walk the footpath up to it, on it's rise that overlooks the bay, and I stare out over the water. It shimmers endlessly, and it is my first glance of it. I realize that I was so overcome with everything else, that I missed the water entirely.

"Beautiful, isn't it, my princess?" I don't recognize the voice and when I turn and see Ahmiran, I smile lightly.

"Yes."

"Have you ever seen the water before, lady?"

"No." I feel him fall in beside me, and I glance up at his extremely sharp features. The sunlight reflects in his eyes.

_Her_ eyes.

"I always wanted to."

"The water is good. It brings in massive clouds and storms that make everything green. You should see it, princess, the way the lightning strikes the water, and comes barrelling in and over us." He moves as he speaks, and I see it. "Perhaps we will get weather, and you can watch the rain come in sheets to cover everything and wipe away the world a drop at a time."

And I understand why she misses his stories.

"Will you tell us a story tonight?" I ask suddenly, thinking about it.

"My Princess, of course." He grins. "It would be an honor. An absolute honor to regale you with the odd tale of older days."

"Quinn." I whisper. "We are family."

He goes very quiet, pensive even. "I hesitate to ask, it isn't my place, but my sister?"

I worry about his next words and he selects them carefully. "Yes?"

"I heard she was very upset about going back to Winland. Is everything better? Is there anything I can do?"

I wish there was.

"I believe there are more words to be said, but by me and her, not anyone else. I appreciate your concern."

He smiles again, bright and absolutely stark against the depth of color in his skin. "We are family. It is how it should be."

His words sting painfully if for no other reason than, yes, this is how it should be. When I see my father gesturing for me, I give Ahmiran another smile and squeeze his arm as I pass. He looks down at it.

"Quinn?"

I pause, turning back to him. "Yes, Ahmiran?"

He seems pleased I know his name. "I'll do my best to make it better. Shall I walk with you?"

And just like when his sister speaks, I believe his words too. And though I want his company, I force a smile for his benefit, imparting the only bit of knowledge I have regarding Rachel. "She missed you every day you were gone. You should be with her instead."

* * *

We dine under the stars when night comes, sitting at large tables where the most amazing food drips like candle wax from serving platters. The candlelight shimmers, and the rush of water from waterfalls tickles the edges of my hearing. It is spellbinding and though I can't share it with Rachel the way I want to, I steal moments of it for myself anyway.

I steal a little love and affection as she bestows it on others. It enamors me, watching the reflections of water path over her skin as she talks to Ahmiran. I savor the candlelight catching on her smile as her eyes dance in laughter as she nudges Khalil and steals fruit from his plate. Rachel's honest affection lights up a face I would have followed anywhere, to the end of the world, into the deepest part of the Black Chasm.

And as the ocean breeze breathes over her, twisting her hair and ruffling her feathers, I realize it takes a little longer for her grin to fade when she looks at me. Being here, in her world, in the home she loves and finds comfort in lessens the evils I've brought.

Perhaps in a small way it will make it easier for her to forgive me.

I pray for it with everything I have.

An'Berry clears his throat and rises from his seat, signalling for the conversation to hush. It pulls my attention from Rachel. "To the Queen and King, whose wisdom guides us now and to the Princess and my Rachel, who will guide our future." His glass raises and with a cheer glasses clink and spill mirth.

After a moment's hesitation, I touch the lip of my cup to Rachel's, and though it could be my imagination, her brow seems to soften. I hang on it, hope for it and use it to keep my foot hold steady in my directive to reclaim her love.

Ahmiran is across from us, and just as he promised, he keeps conversation flowing and does his best to melt a bit of the ice between us. He truly is every bit the storyteller Rachel said. His quick wit and striking use of language, has my mind reeling with every story he tells.

And we trade laughter and awe long into the night.

Ahmiran becomes in one night the brother I wish I had. He also somehow makes everything I've done that much harder to tolerate because had things been different, he would feel like a brother and not an untouchable ally in a war of distance.

When the expansiveness of it all becomes too difficult to take, my steps carry me away from the celebration, giving me a physical separation from the emotional one. I exit the wide open city center and make my way through the gardens. My fingers trail through the vines. I inhale the scent of night blooming jasmine and honeysuckle as I weave my way through the archways.

I wonder if these beautiful places, these striking pillars and engraved arches were places Rachel walked as a child. Did she play in the shadows of these building, pray in these temples? Before the tables were laid out this afternoon did she practice sword technique on the sandstone slabs under a blistering midday sun?

I wish I knew who she was before she could have been mine.

I trace the pillars and columns in turn, standing mesmerized by the water that pours from a slit in the limestone and rushes in a sheet before me. It spills into a limestone basin lined with emerald colored glass. It sparkles in the torchlight and bounces shimmers against the ivy and blossoms around me. I follow the water that pours from lips on either side as it races away in winding troughs.

I dimly remember Rachel's desires to create aqueducts under Winland. It was her resolution to the shortage of water and grain turns ago. I understand why now; why she had pushed so hard to bring it to fruition. I had no idea it could work, that anything could be like this. That a water rich economy could exist anywhere.

I ponder how narrow my view of the world is as I run my hands through the curtain of liquid. It's cool, and shimmers on my fingertips. I stare at it, watch it drip and shimmer as it runs out of my hands.

A figure approaches, adorned in glimmering purple, obscured of detail in the rushing water. I stare through the ripples, hoping with all my heart it's Rachel. I think it is, because there is something in the shape of the figure, a movement, a moment; a fluidity that echoes of water and grace I will never have or understand.

It is reserved for her and her alone.

"Ahmiran, asked me to come find you."

I'm grateful it's her, despite the justification of her coming. "I'm glad he did."

She doesn't answer me.

"I love your home." I say it softly, hoping my voice carries over the water.

She is silent so long, I'm not sure she heard me. "I do, too."

"I think it is magnificent, though not quite as magnificent as you." Right as I say it, I feel very stupid. I can't imagine anyone saying those words with a straight face. I wait for her acidic response or laughter, but when nothing comes, I swallow hesitantly and let go the breath I'm holding.

I circle the water and she comes into view, lifting her eyes to my face for an all too brief moment. I stare at her, at how the light bounces over her in waves. It twists with the ebony of her hair, and works it's way into her eyes. In the foreground, with her wings to the most beautiful place I've ever seen, her image leaves me breathless. She meets my eyes and I slowly move closer, grateful she lets me, until I can stand beside her.

"Your parents leave in the morning, just after sunrise."

"Yes."

"They will be back in a week's time."

I'm not sure if it's a question or not. "I know, but I don't want to talk about that."

She crosses her arms before her as her eyes hang on the curtain of water. "What did you want to talk about?"

"You." I smile at her when she looks at me.

"Me?"

"Yes."

Rachel takes a breath, holding the space between us captive while she debates her feelings on it. Her eyes bounce wildly. "What about me?"

"Tell me about you."

She focuses on me with a skeptical arch in her elegant brow. "That is very general. You already know so much, or you should, so I don't know what more to say."

Her shot about how I _should_ know her well, isn't missed by me. I frown a little. "Tell me about your growing up here."

She shakes her head. "There isn't much to tell." She ends the conversation there even as I wait for her to say more.

I try something else. "Do you have one of the tattoos?"

"The Thursian brand?"

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"Where do you hide it?"

She looks rather disgusted with me, but keeps her eyes on the water. "I don't hide it."

"Well, you don't wear it on your face like some." I push a small laugh, mostly to alleviate my nerves.

"They are very proud warriors. It isn't funny."

I sober and stare at the water again. "No, it isn't, you're right."

The silence stretches uncomfortable between us. I wish she would say something. Anything. I silently beg for her to give me a starting point, a chance to make things better.

"I have it on my side."

I blink at the glowing water before me as I think about it. "Why there and not on your arms like most of your people?"

"Because you get them when you are mated and I was very young. So my father picked where, he thought that spot was more appropriate for me, seeing as I would have to live in Winland."

I open my mouth to answer her, and then close it. When I look over at her in the diffuse light, there is a trace of vulnerability in her expression. "I don't think it would have mattered."

Rachel doesn't meet my gaze. "It was hard enough adjusting to that world. You can imagine how much harder it would have been with tattooing on my skin."

"It is your culture and your people. You should sacrifice nothing of who you are to take the throne. I would have protected you from harsh words."

She narrows her eyes at me when she looks at me. "No you wouldn't have. However, those words are oddly reminiscent of something I told you once."

I have to think about it, think back through the hundreds of thousands of words between us. And then I remember. The night in the library when she told me that in our intimacy she would always protect me.

I wish she would have told me that the lack of her protection would destroy me.

"You were right then, just as I am now. I wish it were today that you were receiving your brand. I would be very happy to see it against your skin."

She regards me then, and it seems her eyes are a little softer, not quite as piercing. I can tell there is a pain here, something I don't know or understand yet when she answers, "it doesn't matter."

I soften my expression. "Of course it does. What does it mean?"

"It denotes my family, with images, but the hashing means we are warriors. It is an homage to the first Thursian, who were scarred and brutalized in battle." She sighs, shaking her head. "It's something I've very proud of, my history and my people. My family."

"You have every right to be."

I slide to the lip of basin and stare at the wall across the path from us. I trace the ivy and the long spires of purple blooms that hang daintily. It's then that I smell the salt of the water, and it fills my chest with warmth when I breathe it in. I close my eyes.

"Do you see that building over there, the high one?"

I open my eyes to see her pointing. It is far off, but I can clearly make out the tower. There is a ball of what looks like bronze hovering above it. It looks like it's floating in the darkness.

"Yes."

"Ahmiran used to fly up there with me and hold me as he dove off. I remember screaming the whole way down, my stomach practically in my throat." She sits down beside me, and I smile slowly holding my gaze on the tower regardless of how badly I want to turn to her.

"What else?"

"Down at the end of this walkway, where the pillars end," I look down the endless row, "I was dodging between them practicing my flying and crashed. I broke the bone in my finger." She holds up the previously wounded digit, tapping it with her thumb.

"Did you ever make it to the end successfully?"

"Yes."

Rachel's eyes go wide as I reach out and pull the hand toward me. I stare at it, at the miniscule bend in an otherwise perfect finger. "I wish you had never felt that pain." I trace her nail bed and slide my thumb up, brushing to her hand and then back again.

Her words are soft, yet carry so much in them. "There are other pains far worse."

I nod solemnly, yearning to reach out and touch her face. To kiss her lips and hold her close. I wish i could tell her what she means to me, how it was her and her alone that saved me on the mountain.

All I have though are pity words in comparison. "I wish you never had those pains either."

I feel her lean closer, drawing nearer to me, and I tighten her fingers in mine.

She whispers into the soft rolling salt air. "What's done, is done, my princess."

I shake my head to refute it, to erase the sound of my title on her lips. I raise her hand, kiss her fingers, as if I can erase all of it from ever happening. "Never. Nothing will ever be done, until it's put right."

However, because it did happen, I have no right to kiss her fingers or say those words.

Rachel pulls her hand back from my lips sharply and when I look up at her, she frowns.

I hold her hand in mine firmly. "Let me try to fix things."

She purses her lips, putting space between us again. "No."

I understand it, I have no right to hope for a different answer. "Is there anything I can say to mend what I've done?"

"I don't know."

It gives me hope despite her tone. "What if I told you that you were all I thought of when faced with my death. That every day I wish I could go back to the beginning and be different. That I've never felt regret before, only for you - for us. That I love you with all my heart."

I expect those words to have impact. I don't expect that impact to be her standing. Her hand slides from mine. "I know you love me."

"If you asked, I would give it to you." I rush, my fingers reaching for hers. "I can't deny you anything. Everything I have and am, is yours."

She sighs heavily, the emotion in her eyes catching the light. They shimmer like the ocean just beyond the outline of her wings.

"It is my turn now." Rachel starts back toward the city square and I watch the way she moves, the long lines of her body shifting with the weight I've placed upon her. "Tonight will not be the night this is fixed, princess."

I don't know how I find words, but I whisper them after her as she vanishes into the paradise of her home. "I know, sleep well Rachel."


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Hi! Wow! Good evening all! I fell asleep last night before I could post more. However, here it is.

I think this chapter just kinda explains itself. Hope you enjoy the revelations from Rachel's point of view. This is chapter 2 out of 6 in the 'straight up faberry awesomeness' part of this story and it's only getting better from here.

Let me know what you think and as always - thank you for your feedback.

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Chapter 19

Rachel 1418

I watch Ahmiran and Khalil play.

I can't believe how different it feels seeing them here. We haven't all been together in so long, not since the night Ahmiran left. I remember it clearly; the dinner and stories. Laying in the pillows and blankets as Khalil was sent to bed and Ahmiran said his goodbyes to him.

And after his stories, his final goodbye to me as morning came.

It still aches, even though he is home and with me.

I don't think the threat of loss, of losing the people I love will ever deaden. It's not like a cut or a scrape, it's not like being afraid of thunder and lightning as a child - it's deeper. It's a bone deep scar of both pain and fear that I will carry with me forever.

It's the sacrifice I bear willingly because I love, and hope, and hold him close to my heart. And I will give away any piece of my sanity to love him well while he's here, so if I ever lose him, he will never have a doubt about how deep my love was.

It is how all Thursian Winlean were meant to love. No sacrifice too great, no loss of sanity too expansive and no pain or agony unable to be born. A love without time or measure; yet, so much time is gone seemingly in the blink of an eye.

I can see it now, as my memories and life collide. Where Khalil was once a small child, and Ahmiran not yet a grown man, they have grown into themselves. They are both broader, stronger, more capable. When Ahmiran's eyes catch mine, I see such wisdom there now - so much more than the boy who left home. The wild spirit is still there for both of them though, and seeing little hints of it makes me smile.

From my overstuffed chair in my father's home, I sit cross legged, book in hand, and memorize them.

I do everything I can to remember this moment, the way they smile, how Ahmiran sets up a map of the castle piece game and explains the rules to Khalil. I use it for reasons beyond just wanting to remember the moment. I want to focus on them so I don't have to focus on everything else.

I don't want to think about the fact the Queen and King have been gone for a day. That they are meeting with the Ta'lak, and that it's possible that no favorable terms will be reached. That if we cannot build an alliance with them our northern border is an exposure point we cannot risk. Not with the army needed at the Eastern edge by the mountains. If the Ta'lak won't budge, then I don't know what we will do, spread as thin as we already are.

I blink the thoughts away as I try to keep at bay the fear that this might be the last time my brothers while away the time in play. The image of Ahmiran in light armor as he flies away lights in my mind again and reminds me of how afraid I was when he left.

How I would give my life to stop it from happening again.

I also don't want to think about Quinn. I don't want to think about what it felt like to hear her words or feel her hand in mine. There is no doubt in my mind that I love her, but only now am I seeing parts of her that are finally worth the affection that I wanted to give her. My anger over that, over the ill timing, is as wide and deep as my emotion to the contrary.

And despite that anger, or perhaps in spite of it, last night in the fountain's light I fell in love a little more. It dazzles me how something that started as a curse and a gift at the same time, could become infatuation with her elegant look and a challenge to her iron cast demeanor. But then it became hostility and fury, slipped into attraction and passion, and festered into fear and loathing.

Yet now -

I sigh heavily.

Now.

"You have a look, sister."

I shake it away. "I am just happy to be here with you both. With everyone."

Ahmiran gives me his even expression, stating without words that he knows there is more. He doesn't probe though, and I'm grateful because he is the only one I can't keep secrets from. Khalil comes over with a smile and I set my book aside to lean against his middle.

"I missed you." He notes lightly, patting my head.

I nod against him and I poke his tummy lightly until his laughter fills my ears and lightens my heart.

"Stop." He burrs softly, and I kiss his arm before letting him go.

"Okay."

"Where is your mate?"

I glance at Ahmiran and look away from the weight in his eyes. "I don't know."

He laughs and Khalil laughs too though I know it isn't overtly funny. "It might be bad to lose a princess, Rachel. Did you show her the water yet?"

I have not because again, in spite - I rationalized why would I be gracious when she has been nothing but terrible to me?

"No."

"No?" Kahlil interjects a surprised gasp into Ahmiran and my conversation and I give him a face before poking him again. He squirms out of reach.

Ahmiran's eyes are unamused, and it bothers me to see such silent reprimand in his gaze. "Shame. It is something the Princess enjoyed yesterday. You should make a point of it before you leave."

I point to Khalil who is regarding me silently, much too serious for his age. "Do you want to take the princess to the water?"

He stops to think about it and then looks to Ahmiran. "Yes."

I sigh. "Fine. Then I will. Now play your game."

I think about Quinn again as Khalil and Ahmiran play. Ahmiran makes sound effects for the explosions as Khalil screams his laughter with every kill. It creates a perfect backdrop to the thoughts I have on the war between Quinn and I, and the zeal in which we have danced around each other with strikes that draw blood.

Ahmiran lets Khalil win, and by the time they are clearing the pieces, Quinn enters the room.

She looks sun kissed and windblown, her eyes smiling. They twinkle at me and I look away quickly, to stop the effect they have on me.

How they crack at my walls.

"Quinn, do you play?" Ahmiran asks casually as she joins them at the table.

"Yes. Though admittedly, not as well as I would like."

Ahmiran looks straight at me. "Rachel taught me how to play, I'm sure she could teach you."

I give him an infuriated look and wipe it from my face when Quinn turns to me. "I would be honored." She inclines her head and with all three sets of eyes staring at me, I find it very hard to object to a quick lesson.

"Okay." I say with resignation to the situation. If I didn't love Ahmiran as much as I do, I would be very angry with him. I hope he knows it with the look I give him as I move to the table. I set my book down on the edge.

I think Quinn reads the expression though, because she thins a smile at me as her hands fiddle with the pieces. She isn't typically a fidgeter. I've only ever seen her play with her gown and even then, it was perhaps once. In the tower, when I sat on the seat beside her.

Her eyes don't meet mine. "Maybe just a quick game?"

She drops a few of the piece back in the box. "We can do a half game and you can be the lavender ones."

She always makes me the black pieces because lavender is _her _color. It makes me both annoyed and sad that she can be so gracious in front of my family. It bothers me enough that I'm riled by the idea of beating her with her own army.

I watch her place the lavender pieces before me and I arrange them absently. I don't know what to think or feel as I watch her motions. As she sets her pieces up into the way she always does, the way she's been doing for years.

"Thank you." I whisper belatedly, regarding the drawn map before me.

I play out the battle in my head, looking at opportunity and weakness to my position.

Her eyes catch mine when I'm finally satisfied with my positioning.

She smiles again, disarmingly. It is the oddest sensation, when she extends her hand letting me move first. I never have honors. I always have to wait. I think she believes it will make me feel good, that it will make everything better. All it does though is make me that much angrier, as if suddenly everything she does is a mockery of my previous misery.

I waste no time and jam my army forward, cutting her's in half.

Ahmiran whistles under his breath. "Bold."

Quinn counters, bringing in areal support.

I focus all my firepower on the right side of her army, hitting it with everything from my ballista to my archers. She loses three pieces.

She does the same, killing half my light infantry and a unit of archers before she is done. She's been practicing, I realize, as I roll my eyes up to her. I don't miss how she gives Khalil one of my units of soldiers for safekeeping.

I also don't miss how genuinely pleased and proud he looks by the gesture.

"It has been many turns since Rachel and I have played." She states to give narrative to the empty quiet of the room. "I don't think I've won once, perhaps this time will be different."

I pause before I make another move. I study the field again, using what I know about Quinn to reassemble placement for my pieces. I drift my forward position back and out of reach. If she wants to destroy me, I'll force her to come to me.

She has always been blinded by the idea of victory.

Quinn pushes her whole army forward as expected. "It's always been fun to play with her though, even when it wasn't."

"When wasn't it?" Ahmiran asks.

Quinn laughs softly. "When I was beat mercilessly every single time."

When I glance at her, my venomous words in response to what she said hanging on my tongue, she is regarding my flipped book and she lifts her gaze to me. "What are you reading?"

I can't help but remember seeing her alone in the library that night when she asks it. She had looked so beautiful, so open and honest and loving. I'd never seen her blush before, but it was there in the candlelight that night, bright pink swatches across her cheeks.

And a fire burning in her eyes.

"None of your concern." I whisper to mask the thoughts I have.

I draw my army out in a V to both sides of the map, daring her to come right up the middle. She lifts her hand to move and then sets it back down. I watch her eyes move as she catalogues my placement. "Are you trying to bait me?"

I don't answer her.

"It seems like you are hoping I will stupidly stumble into your crossfire."

I arch my brow at her when she smiles at me and drag my book back into my arms. I begin reading where I left off, I try to. It is difficult to retain the first words of the sentence by the end with how slowly Quinn leans forward and her hair falls around her shoulders. She slides her whole army toward one of my exposed sides.

Why she goes toward my heavy infantry side I have no idea, because I can already see it lost the game for her.

Quinn grins, proud she didn't come down the middle. Clearly. "Rachel, when you're ready it's your turn."

I don't even have to play the rest of the game to know exactly what will happen. I will move my right flank in and blast her from the side. She will attack my heavy infantry front and massacre it. She will then turn and defend, but most of her pieces will be lost because they are ground units. After the dust settles from my attack, she will position forward, and what is left of my heavy infantry will swallow her army with the help of my ballista.

"Rachel?"

When I realize it was Ahmiran who said my name this time, I lower my book and flip it closed. "You've lost, Quinn."

Quinn's face shifts into a frown and she looks down. "What do you mean?" Her eyes dart over the armies before us. "I have more pieces right now."

She points to my brother Khalil. "Tell your sister I'm winning."

He does so, under her command. "Princess Quinn is winning, sister."

I feel my anger rise again, because how dare she come to my home and attempt to fix things? How dare she be so comfortable in _my_ world? In _my _home! After I suffered and felt substandard, after I cried and begged and yearned for things to be different. To be _better_!

And she should know that I would die before I would let someone like _her_, someone as blind and foolhardy, command my little brother. That just as her mother can command my brother Ahmiran into battle, someday Quinn could be the leader that sends the people I love to their demise.

And I will never allow it, not _ever_.

She needs to learn it now and for good.

I slam my book down hard on the table and the sound cracks around the room. It makes Quinn's eyes widen as she regards me as I lean heavily on the edge of the table and stare her down.

Everything else fades away except her and I and the lesson she needs to learn.

"Quinn, you are, and forever will be oblivious when it comes to this game. It doesn't matter how many pieces you have, it's the placement that matters. It is the enemy that matters."

"You're going to lose your whole infantry rank right now." She states, pointing at the proximity of her troops to mine. I can hear the heat in her voice. It's equal to my own.

"And you're about to lose the game."

Just as I predicted, she attacks my heavy infantry head on and after she decimates them, I shift my whole right flank up and pincer attack her anyway. I bombard her, and there is something very glorious about reaching out and tearing her pieces off the board with careless hands and depositing them back in the box they came from.

"Okay." Quinn says before her next turn. "Can you teach me how you do this every time?"

I smirk at her. "Never."

"Why?"

And my temper blinds me.

"Because I can't teach you how to have forethought. I can't teach you to think intelligently. All I can do is watch you bumble around on this map and shoot your hide full of arrows until you arrogantly stride into a suicide." I narrow my eyes at her shocked expression. "Move your pieces already!"

She does, turning just as I knew she would.

And I summarily blow her off the map.

I pick the pieces off one at a time between my angry words. "Do you want to know something amusing?"

"What?"

"You used to intimidate me. You made me feel badly about myself and my level of skill in just about everything."

"I know."

"I know that you know." I glare at her as I pull more pieces off the paper. "This game reminds me though, that no matter what you say, you are just an arrogant little princess."

She swallows under my withering gaze.

"You have power because of your birthright, not because you deserve it. And you don't deserve the right to order soldiers into battle anymore than you deserve to sacrifice set pieces in a game. You didn't earn it, you didn't earn anything, it was given to you. And even when things are given to you, you cast them aside if they don't appear to suit your needs."

She knows what I'm talking about now with the way her eyebrows furrow under my assault.

"I will always beat you at this game because you will charge into the fray, you will set your eye on a goal and not deviate from the course. You will sacrifice everything for your objective, and though that may make you happy in your own silly ignorant way, it will make you a very poor Queen when real lives are at risk. For the sake of this kingdom I pray the war comes soon so that your pathetically unskilled hands are kept out of it."

And I realize what I've said only when the red haze in my eyes dwindles and Ahmiran's face appears beside Quinn's; his expression is absolutely horrified. He makes a sound then, and Quinn jumps turning to look at him.

When she looks back at me, her cheeks are slashed in red and if I didn't know any better I would think she looks like she is about to cry.

"What? Nothing to say to that?" I don't know why I say it, why I challenge her further.

"No."

This time, after this game, she leaves very differently than she did before. There is no pushing of the table, no angry words. This time she excuses herself very slowly and I watch her sway for a moment on her feet.

"Thank you for teaching me a lesson." She gives me a very forced curt smile before turning away. And for some very odd reason, Khalil follows her.

The pang of guilt I feel over her words juxtaposed against my own is stark and shameful. I don't think I could have been more cruel, more cold if I had tried. I'm surprised and horrified with myself even before Ahmiran clears his throat uncomfortably.

"I don't know what that was about, but Rachel-" I meet his eyes, "you have to stop. You have to let it go. This isn't _you _and this is the _Princess _we are talking about."

"I wouldn't care if she was the Goddess, that doesn't matter."

"No it doesn't, I just say it because there is a kingdom full of people who would die to be in your place. Who would pay anything to have someone like _her _look at them with half the affection she has for you."

"She doesn't care about me." I say it even though I know it's a lie. It is my last bastion, the last little bit I have left of an excuse to be angry at her over.

Ahmiran shakes his head, picking up my army and rolling the pieces in his hand. "Sister. You were always the best of us. I wish you would remember that and rise to the occasion. I'm disappointed to see how far you have fallen from who you were, to see how prideful and blinded you've become."

"Just because she is a princess, doesn't give her the right to treat people like she does."

"Nor does your place as The Chosen give you that right either." He tosses the pieces in their box. "It was the past. Besides, I think her words bothered you less because she was a princess and more because she was your mate. So, tell her so. You have certainly said enough already. It is time to move on."

His words echo in my ears long after they've been spoken. They serenade me with heartbreak as I eat dinner, as my people and I dance. I do everything with the same well rehearsed motions I do in Winland. And though I'm shamed and wounded, I don't let the truth touch the false joy that hangs on my lips.

Until I see her.

Then I feel the regret, I feel the remorse and it cuts a mar in the perfection of my well-rehearsed smile. It's when I can see the chagrin in her face and even in her wings with the way they wilt on her back, that it upsets me. It looks like I've broken her, though she smiles pleasantly enough for no one to see it but me.

I realize that as consumed as I've been by her pain to me, I forgot that if she loves me - truly, I have that same power. And I'm better than this. I raise my eyes to the sky looking for wisdom in the stars to the question I can't ask.

The answer comes in the form of my brother pulling me up to dance again. And I do, moving in a weaving pattern and spinning dizzyingly. I force laughter into the air in show for my people. His hands let me go and I turn to face my new partner, staring right into Quinn's hazel eyes.

A breath away from me, she is all I can see. I'm so used to her face expressionless, so it shocks me to see such emotion there. I can clearly read the pain, the sorrow, the loss of something she thought she had found.

It's worse still is when everyone chants for us to dance, frozen as we are regarding one another. So we do, hand in hand; a stretch of waters so wide between us I feel like I'll never reach her. We move to the music, and she watches me, following my motions until she is in time with everyone.

I remember her words from last night as we spin together and all I can see is her as the rest of the world is wiped into a blur.

She thought of me at the end. It's as emotionally jarring to think that she thought of me as it is to think that there was almost an end to her. I can't even fathom it as the lights pattern over her and she tightens her hands in mine.

She could have been gone.

I've intentionally avoided it. I've blocked it away, walled it far into the deepest parts of my mind because the thought of it does more than just destroy my will to be angry - it stabs me to the bone. She's too young, too brave, too alive to have been almost ripped away. And after seeing the damage done to Gregory and listening to his screams echo the halls of the palace, it's by the Goddess' hand Quinn is still here.

A gift to me.

One I've been sorely abusing and forgetting and letting my anger get the better of.

When she lets me go and we resume the dance, feeling her slip away hurts me the same way the idea of losing Ahmiran hurts me. Perhaps worse, because in the most literal of senses, I shouldn't let her go when she doesn't know the truth.

That I'll forgive her trespasses if she can find the will to apologize.

If I can find the will to apologize too.

And we can try to be better to one another.

Because she has proven she can be something more than a bladed tongued royal, more than the icy girl I grew up with. I can see it in her eyes as she turns from me and the deep bass beat thunders hard enough to shake my walls down around me.

I turn away as well, before the image of her tears me apart.

And I dance until the music has ended and all the oil has burned out if the lights in the city.

* * *

It has to be nearly dawn when I find my bed and stare up at the stone awake. I lay there for seemingly forever, long enough for Ahmiran's words and Quinn's visage to drive me insane. I roll to my side, unable to get comfortable under the weight of my shame, from my misery because I hurt her so much.

When I hear footsteps outside my door come to a stop, I stare at the wood. The morning light is coming through my window and paints everything in a cream glow. I can see the rays through the glitter that hangs in the air and I almost don't believe the latch turns when it does. I see it, the light pinging off it and I do the only thing I can think of, I lay absolutely still.

When the door closes softly, I open my eyes a sliver and I can see Quinn's wings moving as she twists the latch closed. I see her turn toward me in the dewy glow, her hair sparkling and gown as well. I feint sleep, because I have no other defense against the image before me.

With how the light pools, she can't see me staring at her. And I must. I must look at this woman forever.

I keep my breathing slow and even and watch her, watch as her face shifts as she approaches and takes me in. I can feel her gaze on me, and where once it filled me with nervousness, it is different now. An expectation.

Warmth.

Hope.

It feels familiar and yet so new. I realize they are the eyes that have loved me in the deepest of nights, chased me through my dreams.

Her fingers touch the edge of the bed, press the gathering of material smooth. It's like she doesn't know what to do, or perhaps she doesn't feel brave enough to do whatever it is.

The moments drag on, and then very slowly, painfully slowly, she slides to the floor beside the bed. I focus hard on my breathing, even as my eyes get lost in the gentleness of the motion, in the softness of her hands as they slide toward me.

And then equally as slowly, she lays her head beside mine.

I ease my eyes closed as I feel the motion of her.

I don't know what she is doing, until I feel the faintest swirl of her breath against my hair. My eyes almost come open the following instant, when her hand touches my arm. It is by far the softest touch anyone has ever had on my body; her fingers are warm as they trace down to my hand.

"Rachel?" She whispers.

I find it hard to not respond to my name when all I want is to apologize for my behavior and tell her I love her; however, I stay silent anyway.

It is a testament to the absurdity of my rotten pride.

Her breath feels closer, warmer on my skin. It tumbles down my cheek and then her lips press to my forehead where the hair meets it. They linger there and then pull away. Her warmth moves and blinded by my closed lids I focus on the way the bed moves as she lays her head against it again.

She doesn't move, doesn't breathe. I strain into the shadows behind my lids, listening for her. Listening so closely that I think I can hear her heart beating, hear the words before she speaks them.

When they come, her voice is so very different from how it's ever sounded. It's a tone I've never heard her have, and i wonder if it's for me and me alone. "Rachel, I have never apologized before, for anything. It was something I never had to do, not as a princess or future queen. I know that it will need work, but I come to you just as me, as Quinn." She takes a breath.

"I'm so very sorry."

I stop breathing.

"I don't know if you can hear me, but I am. I'm sorry you still believe I'm terrible and cold. I'm sorry that I said those things to you. All of those things-" her voice chokes silent. "I'm not cold. I'm not. And I didn't mean a word of what I have said to you. I said it because I was afraid, because you are the only one who can hurt me."

She sniffs lightly, and when her breath comes loose shaken, I realize something that will forever change our lives.

She is crying.

The spoiled, brazenly cold princess that tormented me for so long is crying.

I open my eyes then, because I can't take the silence anymore.

Can't take the inaction.

Can't let her cry.

Quinn blinks at me, and I stare right at her, where the tears come down over the bridge of her nose and drop to the silk. It is by far the most beautiful she has ever looked, right now with honest emotion hanging in her eyes.

"And you are the only one who can hurt me."

"I know. I'm sorry I did."

I trace the paths of her sorrow, as the morning light highlights it. My hand comes out and I wipe through the trails, catch them on my fingers. Her eyes are the color of jade in the morning light and they writhe as we stare at one another.

"Please, forgive me." She whispers brokenly.

"I forgive you, Quinn." I edge closer, and stretch my hand toward her, until it touches hers. From this close I can practically feel the heat of her skin, and the smell of her hair fills me as her fingers twine in mine. "Forgive _me_ for treating you so badly today. There was no excuse to do that to you, to embarrass you like that. I know better than that. This has not been the answer."

"It was deserved."

I shake my head. "No, you are never deserving of that."

I close my eyes and just relish in the moment, in how softly her fingers brush mine. "I want to begin again. Try from the beginning and make it right this time."

I turn my head a little, holding her eyes. "I do as well."

She sighs with what I think is relief. "Good."

When her head rests against my bed, I hear her take a deep warbled breath and she begins crying again. I feel it through my bed and I reach out pulling her toward me. She comes with the motion, sliding into the blankets as I wrap my arms around her. I hush her gently, trailing my fingers through her hair as she presses her face to the skin of my neck. I stare down at her, absolutely bewildered by the wave of emotion I didn't think she could make.

"Rachel?" She whispers hoarsely. Her lips move against my throat as she forms the words.

"Yes?"

"After coming here, I realize something. Even when things have improved between us I can never ask you to stay."

When she says it, I know exactly what she is referring to. That she can never ask me to give up my home in Emberlin and live with her in Winland. It is the single most frightening thing I've ever had to face, and they are the words I have been both hoping for and dreading in turn.

It is my life's crossroad, just as the Queen once said and as Ahmiran brought to light.

It is time for me to move on.

"When you ask it, I will stay with you, but only if you promise a gentler hand on my heart."

It is the only thing I can think of.

Quinn lifts her face to meet me, and truly she looks so undefinable enfolded in the rawness of her feelings. "Yes, I promise. I'm so sorry I haven't before."

"Then I promise too," I fix on her eyes, ringed in a blue almost white, breathtaking. "Don't despair, we will both be better in time."

"I love you, I promise it." She whispers.

"I love you too." She pulls me to her tightly, breathless.

And somewhere between my words and the silence that follows, her emotions break her down again. She becomes someone very different to me as she cries the morning away in the shelter of my arms.

She isn't a princess, or a queen, or a Winlean with the whole of the kingdom at her command.

She is Quinn.

Just her.

For me.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: Hope this holds you over for a little bit while I clean house. ;) A little bit of sexual tension is a good thing.

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Chapter 20

Quinn 1418

The days pass, and I find myself forgetting why I'm here. Though the meeting with the Tal'ak should be well underway by now, I acknowledge it only in the fact it is happening. I don't think about anything more than that.

I can't. Not when my days are stripped of duty.

Not when they are filled with _her_.

It's a revelation that cannot be more surprising if I wished it into existence. After purging myself of my guilt and Rachel releasing her outrage, we have come to an understanding between one another. It isn't a verbal one, it isn't definable in that way. It's deeper than that. It's an understanding that allows her to come and go as she pleases in my domain and gives her the opportunities to do this.

And I pray she will the rest of my life.

"I have a day for you." Rachel's voice is whisper soft against my ear, and I smile. Lying in bed, it surprises me I didn't hear her come in.

"Oh?"

Her fingertips brush my arm and I'm so surprised by the motion, I nearly miss her subsequent words. "Hurry and get up, my princess."

I laugh softly at the way she teases out my title. It's a title that I forever thought would be caustic on her lips. Now that it isn't, it's a title I feel better in spite of. When I'm able to pull myself from the haze of my dreams I focus on her face in the darkness. I blink rapidly, tracing the extreme darkness around me. I think it perhaps has something to do with my vision, but no - it is still quite night.

My concern catapults to the forefront of my awareness, despite the smile on her lips. "Are you well?" I don't know why I ask it, not when her expression is warm and calm.

Her face softens further and her gaze traces me. "Yes, Quinn. I'm fine."

I don't miss the pleasure she takes from my concern.

I sit up slowly, holding the blankets to me as I blink at the window beside me and the subtle glow on the horizon. I wipe at my eyes. "It's not daybreak?"

"I want to show you something." When I look back to her, Rachel's eyes are on the steadily lighting sky. I can see clear urgency in her face, so I drag myself from bed despite how tired I feel. Is it possible to be so purged of distress that you feel exhausted without it?

I toss my blankets aside, heading toward the open chest with all my clothing tucked within. As I bend over it, Rachel coughs or chokes, perhaps both. I look back at her, at how she is turned from me, eyes affixed on the ceiling. Her wings twitch nervously as I reach for the royal purple silk on top. I slide it over my shoulders, work my wings into it and as I'm tying it closed I regard her again.

I wish she would look at me.

I wish she would touch me again the way she did before. These past two days have been deliciously torturous in my mind. My dreams and reality blurring until all I can think of is her caress, her kiss. I stare down at my body between the silken edges and I yearn for her to slide against it again.

"We are mated." It's all I say in response to my thoughts and her respectful distance.

Her face turns then and I swear she smiles, but she doesn't say anything.

When I'm done, she slides in beside me and holds out her hand. "Ready?"

I nod as my eyebrow arches and my fingers twine with hers. "Yes."

I'm expecting to go to the study and see a book Rachel found or hear stories from Ahmiran beside the great hearth in the gathering room of her father's home. However, when she guides me through the silent house and presses open the doorway to the estate grounds, I balk.

"Where are we going?"

Rachel chuckles low and soft, making my stomach tremble. "You'll see soon."

I follow her into the gloom, the wet cool air wrapping around me. I shiver. Before me, she casts an image that certainly is every bit of the royalty she is. Her eyes are back on the sky, sucking in the infinitesimal light and glowing, cream wings a hue of lilac and hair midnight black in it's spilling curls. She moves forward languidly and with an incline of her head she launches into the air.

It takes me a moment to realize she just left me, tired as I am. My wings push me after her, as she circles once over her father's home and then heads East carried on the ocean breeze. Once we are flying, she slows and falls in beside me, lazily gliding on the currents.

It's yet another different thing in this place. The air lives, writhes and churns. In winland it's flat, and still a majority of the time. It makes flying so strenuous, every moments travel done purely on my own power. Here, the ocean breathes and makes everything so easy.

It makes _everything_ so easy. I stare at Rachel beside me.

I follow her example, spreading my wings and just letting the air carry me.

"Rachel?" I want to ask her where she is taking me, but as her eyes bounce over the city below her, I can't gather up the heart to interrupt her thoughts.

"Hm?" She doesn't look at me.

"Nothing." I tilt my wings to catch a different draft.

"My brother and I used to go out to the fields and watch the sun rise over the city." She glances at me. "I've never done it with anyone else."

I nod slowly and after a breathless moment, I can find the only words suitable for something like this. "Thank you for sharing it with me."

Rachel smiles.

We land where she indicates, the lick of sunlight threatening behind us. It's a small hill, pressed to the brim with thick green stalks of barley. The plants whisper over one another as Rachel moves in close to me.

She turns us, her hands circling my shoulders. "Don't move."

I would have stayed put even without her prompting because her hands feel so good where they are. Warm, soft and yet commanding in the most exquisite way imaginable. It gets even better, as Rachel reaches out and brushes my wing side, and the resulting chills shoot all the way down my body. She moves in close enough for me to feel the heat of her cheek against mine.

I turn my face toward her, to the glow in her eyes. She glances at me, her eyes drawing over my face. "Soon."

I don't know if she is indicating the sunrise, or the desire I feel.

The chilled wetness of morning moves in again, circling me up, wrapping my exposed skin. I think I feel Rachel move closer and I shift into the motion until we touch. It reminds me of how we stood together at the temple before Gregory's mate was picked. How I wanted to touch her hand, hold it, but didn't feel I could. This time when I stretch my fingers toward her as she shifts, she takes them.

I feel it through my whole body.

My eyes fix on the city before us and when Rachel wraps her arms softly around my middle, I hold my breath as tightly as she's holding my hand.

I do everything I can to find words. "When is it coming?"

I swear she nudges herself closer. "Soon." She points out toward Emberlin, her chin pressing to my shoulder. "Do you see that archway, the high one?"

I fix my eyes on it. "Yes."

"It will hit there first and then turn everything from gray to gold." I swallow raggedly, when her nose edges lightly against my jaw. "It's magnificent."

I don't understand her words, not truly - not when her hand tightens on my side and pulls me closer. "What?"

Rachel's lips press to my ear and make my knees weak with the warmth of her tone. "Magnificent."

"What is?" I ask turning in her embrace.

Her lips inch closer to mine. "Everything."

"When?" I press closer, my heart thundering until the brush of the barley is muted.

In the silence, when her lips press to mine, I only hear her voice feathered between the motion of her lips. "Now."

And the sunlight rips the world awake one color at a time.


	21. Chapter 21

A/N: Fluff - and more tension... but Quinn makes Rachel a promise, and I'll make sure it is fulfilled before the weekend ends. Thank you for reading and reviewing. I'll put out the chapter you all are waiting for as soon as I can tomorrow, you know... if you want me to...

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Chapter 21

Rachel 1418

Is it possible to love something _more_? More than you loved it the day before, and the day before that? I wonder it, two-fold as I scream my laughter to the piercing blue sky.

I love Quinn more today than yesterday, than the day before. I love my home more too, seeing it through her eyes.

She's renewed my adoration for the places I've known. I've shown her the world where I played as a child, the grove of trees and lagoon, the warrior's barracks. We've dived from the tower where Ahmiran held me as a baby, laid by the fire captivated by his stories and chased small streams that pour to the ocean.

And now, the ocean itself.

I've seen so much of Quinn in the years we've lived and grown together. I've seen her hurt and angry, happy and proud. But I've never seen this. I've never seen such childlike zeal, such a rush of emotion. As she runs through the water and splatters drops of sunlight around her, I'm thrilled she can find joy here. I'm thrilled I can find it too, and my giggles sound foreign in my ears with how swept away I am by them.

Quinn grabs my hand and we twist fingers. I'm half expecting her to run, pull me from the tide as she's been doing all morning, but she doesn't. She runs towards the incoming wave instead.

When my love dumb mind catches up to what's happening, I plant my feet with her name on my lips. "Quinn!"

It's coming, the massive wave magnified by a storm off the coast. I stumble, not wanting to pull too hard and hurt her. My chivalry is rewarded with her giggles as she wraps me up in her arms, holding fast. "Stay with me." Her lips pressing to mine even as I try to pull away.

"I don't want to get wet!" I cry, distracted by her hands and lips pushing heat through me. It's quite possible that when the water actually touches me, it will turn to steam with how hot her touches make me.

She just laughs, and though I know it will be cold, and itch and leave sand sticking to me, I tighten my hands on her shoulders and dive deeper into her kiss. I stare into her eyes and hold them as our lips move slowly and the expectation builds. When the wave comes, I watch Quinn's eyes widen and her surprised scream rip the air between us. It's cold, bitterly so as every inch of me is consumed in a roar.

The froth shoots up around us, puffing cloud-like against the sky as white as her wings. And as the water covers her, her golden hair turns the color of the sand, her purple silk black. It draws down every curve and angle of her body, framing everything I saw this morning, making me want it so desperately I can't breathe.

I can't resist the urge. I pull her toward me ungainly and kiss her. I don't care if the whole of the city sees, I don't care about anything but her.

Quinn's wet fingers twist in my hair, holding me close. I had always felt I would be able to drown in a kiss, but a kiss from her is as vast as the ocean beside me and as deep too. The water rolls away, the sand under my feet sliding with the tide. Quinn wraps her arms tighter, angling her head, pushing deeper. She tastes like salt and warmth, like sunshine.

She tastes like everything I've ever wanted in the world.

"Show me the tower." She whispers between the motion of her lips.

"Which tower?" I can't fully process her words, not when she shifts me to the side, moving us from the waves. I cling to her lips, her hands gathering the wet silk at my lower back.

She grins and pulls back far enough I can catch a breath and realize slowly how silly my question was. I can feel the heavy shadow of the tower behind me, it's staunch, resolute presence everlasting. Quinn must see the realization move over my face because she nods. "The tower."

I swallow brokenly, slipping from where I popped on my toes in her arms. "Okay."

It's not far, so we walk hand in hand. I stare down at her fingers in mine, long and elegant. "Why do you want to see the tower?"

Quinn glances at me. "I've learned about them, studied the battles surrounding them, but I've never seen them before." She moves the clinging hair from the side of her face. "I want to _really_ see them, and touch them, be within them."

For a moment, I swear she isn't talking about the tower anymore. Not with the way her voice has lowered. It dries my throat to dust and I hesitate a look at her.

"Do you?"

Quinn arches a brow at me. "Of course, I want to."

"You want to touch them?"

The sand melts away, giving way to limestone as I edge up to the entrance. Her silence makes my knees tremble. The awareness of her behind me as I move up the steps, tickles my spine. It makes my wings puff as every piece of me races with chills. I'd give anything for her to press herself against me, touch me the way I want to touch her. Mate with me and make me her queen.

It feels like she heard my thoughts because Quinn's hands slide from my fingers to edge up my arm. As the sun gets blocked by the interior of the tower, she spins me to her, squeezing my forearms.

"Yes, I want to touch them."

"Why?"

"Because I can't believe they are real."

We pull each other toward the closest wall, and my wings soften the fall against it. Quinn's against me then, her warm body and wet silk pressed so tightly against me I can't breathe. It's everything I want. I gasp for air, pulling her closer as her hands tangle in my hair.

"You want to be within them?"

If she answers, I feel like I might die.

Her brow arches and she smiles slyly. "I am."

Though it isn't what I wanted her to say, I push into her lips, the motion becoming easy and familiar in only a day. It makes me marvel at it, at how perfectly we fit together like this. I roll my eyes closed as her mouth paths across my cheek and down my neck. Her whispered words make my legs tremble. "Do they want me within them is the real question."

Oh, Goddess. I clench my eyes closed against her lips' resumed motions and pant out the answer. "I couldn't imagine they wouldn't want that."

Her fingers leave my hair and slide down my sides. I arch into the motion, pressing as much of me into her hands and body as possible. When her motions slow to a stop and her fingers curl into my lower back, I gasp.

Her face comes up to mine and her eyes blink excitedly at me. She nuzzles my neck before she kisses the sensitive skin under my ear. "Tell me what you just felt."

I swallow rapidly and open my mouth to speak, but I can't. It's so impossible to describe, what she does to me. She must certainly know how I feel, how badly I desire her. "Heat."

"Heat?"

"Yes." I stare up at the spiraling tower steps above me. "So much heat."

Quinn smiles against my neck and her soft laugh works into me. "I feel that too."

Her admittance makes the heat that much hotter, knowing she feels the same. "Quinn." She lifts her face to me, her eyes bouncing over mine expectantly. My hands feel heavy as they press her hair back off the side of her cheek. I lick my lips when her eyes trace over them. "I want you within me."

Quinn whines softly between us. "I want that too."

This time when she kisses me, it makes me dizzy. I pull her closer, desperately searching for a way to show her I mean my words. Her hands tighten, press, usher me on.

"Touch me." I order, or request, I'm not sure which. Quinn's lips cover my mouth.

Her fingers map up the inside of my thigh and it takes everything I have to keep my legs steady. "I would love to touch-"

"Oh, I'm sorry." It's Ahmiran, and my eyes pop open in surprise. Quinn pulls away, clearly horrified, her hands retreating from where I wanted them. From where I _almost_ felt them. I take in his retreating figure through the archway as he leaves with a growl at the back of my throat. He must have needed us, because Ahmiran has kept a respectful distance when Quinn and I have been together. I slow my rapid breathing and make a fist, thumping it against my thigh lightly, cursing my life.

My eyes move to Quinn and take in her flushed cheeks and rapid breathing. "I'm sorry."

She clears her throat. "Should we see what he wanted?"

I push off the wall. "Yes."

I'm so disappointed. So rattled and shaken and unfulfilled. I try not to frown as I head toward the mouth of the tower, but I do all the same. I'm almost outside when Quinn's hand catches mine. I look down at it and then back at her.

"Tonight."

My everything flutters. "Tonight?"

She presses close to me, placing a chaste kiss on my lips, igniting everything but chaste thoughts. "Yes, tonight." Her words are echoed by the far off rumble of thunder, a building storm much like the one within me. "I promise, tonight it will be just you and I." Quinn nudges my nose with hers, her lips brushing again. "All night."

I pull her closer, unable to resist the temptation of her words. "All night?"

"It's the least I can do for-" Quinn looks away.

"What is it?" I ask, as her eyes dart around.

"It's darker." She's hushed, and where my hands are on her shoulders, I feel the muscle tense.

That's when I realize she's never been on the ground before. Winland is too high to have ever had a storm move over her head. "It's the clouds." I clarify, smiling. That was probably what Ahmiran had come to us about. How long were we kissing that the storm was able to come in?

"Can we see it?"

"Yes." I indicate the stairs. "We can go to the top of the tower."

This time it's Quinn who leads the way, my hand in hers as she walks slowly upward. I stare at her back, at her wings as she moves, admiring and desiring her in turn. I squeeze her hand, summoning her eyes to me to share a smile.

A smile that falters when a sharp snap of thunder rattles the stones around us.

"This is safe?"

I nod. "These towers have stood for three hundred turns, Quinn."

She sighs. "I'm sorry."

I blink at her, still unfamiliar with her willingness to apologize. "What are you sorry for?"

"For worrying."

"It takes more than some storm to topple a Thursian Tower."

Quinn laughs softly. "I've seen first hand the indelible spirit of the Thursian, so I have no doubt."

Her words make my face warm until I know I'm blushing. I like being unremovable and unconquerable to her. I will only be conquered when I want to be. Though, as her fingers twine in mine, I am at peace with it in some regards.

Once at the top, the wide open chamber is whipped in wind. It takes a chaotic hand to the sand and scrub brush growing between the stones. Through the cut out portion of the tower, where the ballistas used to fire from, I can see nothing but blackness as the clouds churn.

Quinn stares up at it and I watch her eyes widen as a lick of lightening splinters across the sky. Her fingers tighten in mine. "By the Goddess."

The resulting rumble makes her jump.

"You will see a power you have never seen before." The rain is coming, I can see it - a hazy dust out to sea. The sheet of rain come at us, blurring the ocean at a speed far faster than I was expecting. "It's coming Quinn."

She pulls me to her, desperately. "Kiss me in the rain."

I laugh as the storm picks up, and the wind gets that much harder. "Kiss you in the rain?"

Quinn softens. "I want to do everything I've never done with you."

It makes my heart skip a beat. "Okay." I turn out toward the ocean. "but watch it come. You need to remember it because it is amazing."

"You are." She whispers, but turns to look anyway.

I can hear it, the rain sizzling like food on a spit, coming faster as the clouds churn above us. When it comes, it drowns out the shoreline, washing the sand in a deep brown. The sound of the rushing patter is drowned out by Quinn's whine of excitement.

Her arms tighten on me until I turn to her. "It's going to soak us."

I brush my hair out of my face. "Yes, it is."

It's a wall, gray and unstoppable before us.

"I only want to soak in you."

"You will." I turn into her fully. And the moment the rain moves over us, I pull her head down into my lips, while the storm manifests the power I feel in my heart for her.

A power I vow to show her tonight, when she pulls back and endearingly kisses the rain from the tip of my nose with a smile.


	22. Chapter 22

A/N: Okay, my friends... So. I didn't realize how pent up *I* was, until I started writing this and it just kept going, for forever. So yeah... hope you enjoy this massively long love making session, despite taking a bit longer than I thought it would to get it to you. We will return to our regular chapters after this and the build to the end of part 2. :)

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Chapter 22

Quinn 1418

The amount of time since we promised to be better to one another is a blink of an eye compared to how long we've been cruel.

How long I've been cruel.

It baffles me how this promise, to be soft and warm, is somehow the easiest promise I've ever had to pledge. It's as natural as breathing, more natural than the last six years of my life have been. I didn't realize it until recently that it took so much effort to fight against my feelings and my instinct. The constant war within me made me so tired from the strain.

And though I'm tired now, it is a well deserved tired after a day of sharing sunrises and rain coated kisses. Growing closer through small movements, a delicate dance whose tempo is a heart's beat.

The fire rages beside us and here in the study of her father's home, I trace the extra light on her from it. It bounces shadows across Rachel's face, makes our armies shift like they are real and alive. We are playing the castle game again, but this time, things are much different. We laugh and share stories as we slowly crawl our way through a very long match.

She is sitting across from me, her eyes dark and heavy between the pieces. Rachel stifles a yawn, stretching her wings just a little. I watch the motion and smile, picking up a piece between us.

I roll it through my fingers, feeling the grooves. I like calling her by her proper title, now that my heart isn't filled with disdain. I particularly like how she blushes every time I do it. "Are you tired, lady?" I ask softly, pressing the piece forward. I'm so focused on her I don't know what I just moved, what I was just holding.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Rachel bites a smile, her blush coming again as her eyes sparkle. "Majesty," she winks lightly, "a little, but I'm enjoying myself." She lazily nudges one of her soldiers toward me. I like it when she plays the lavender pieces, when she touches anything symbolic of our future. "I don't want to stop."

"I don't either."

She meets my eyes briefly, a sliver of regret hanging in the statement, before her gaze slides to the map between us. "I think at this point we are just moving things for the sake of moving them."

"I suppose you're right." I smile as I take in the center of the map where our armies have marched into one another without an attack. I think it's the first time we've ever sat across one another at a game and been merciful. And more than that, warm and gentle. I measure how everything will play out on the battlefield between us as the patter of rain comes harder.

I sigh. "Do your worst, Rachel."

She laughs softly and the sound is echoed by a soft rumble of thunder.

"Even in opposition I always gave you my best Quinn."

Yes, she has and now it's my turn. "I know, my lady." The color rises in the bronze of her cheeks and I feel it in my heart.

We take turns removing each other's pieces, until all the combat has played out. Our laughter mixes, mingles and ebbs between us as the fire burns down low.

After a truly ugly massacre, where the game's pieces had once framed the sepulcher to the death of our love one angry look and word at a time, Rachel and I grin at one another instead. I lay my head down on the table, the rain lulling me into quite contentment as I use my arms to pillow into some level of comfort.

"Rachel?"

"Hmm?" She burs softly, positioning herself the same way before closing her eyes. I map my gaze over her face, watching the fire flicker over her content expression.

"How are you so good at this game, really?"

A flash of lightning highlights the blue rings in her eyes as she opens them to pin me. "I don't play the game, I play the person."

I grin. "So what you're saying is you exploit my weaknesses."

Her eyes widen at me innocently between the swords of my infantrymen and slowly soften when she realizes it's true. "Yes, I suppose so. I apologize for taking advantage. It wasn't very gallant of me." She smiles tracing the wood beneath her fingers. "I will rectify it, my princess."

Her words make my heart flutter. It's still so new. So fresh. That smile and those eyes regarding me like they are now. And her words, dear Goddess, her words. How soft her voice is when she calls me _her_ princess. It makes everything exciting, rolling charges through me, expectation and hope of what she will say next. I've certainly had my life hinged on words before, everything in my life has been hinged on an edict or writ, but with Rachel its different. Everything is filled with an overwhelming feeling of promise.

And comfort.

My breath catches and I look away, fixing on the map. I lift a piece and before I can move it, Rachel clears her throat. "I suppose it will begin now." I glance up at her as she stands slowly and circles the table between us. It still surprises me when she gets close to me, when she touches my arm and loops her hand around my wrist softly. It shouldn't, because our proximity to one another is closer than ever before, but it's still so different.

It's something I've yearned for so long, I can't believe it's happening.

She stands beside me and trails her fingers over my arm until I drop the piece I was holding as all my muscles just quit. I jump at it.

Rachel laughs softly as she reclaims the piece for me and puts it back in it's place. "Before you make the move," she brushes her leg against my shoulder, leaning in close to me, "look at where my archers are."

I can hardly understand her words as everything in me focuses on where I can feel the heat of her skin through my side. My eyes can't get to the pieces on the map, not when they are caught on her fingers as they caress slowly over my arm.

I do everything I can to right my head and measure the army across from me. The archers are in the back, far away.

"They're out of range."

"You forget the mechanics," she nudges me with her hip, drawing my attention to her. I fix her with a smile as she looks down. "Just like in real life, by air you travel farther than by foot in the same amount of time. So, I leave my fliers behind to draw you into my infantry and then I can hit you at the same time with everything the next turn."

I narrow my eyes at her and then the map. "Why do you always make me come to you?"

She slides down beside me, arranging herself neatly on the thick pile rug beneath us. As her eyes move over mine and we hold gazes, the answer to the question isn't actually relevant. Not really, not any more than the fact that the answer is coming _from_ her.

I preoccupy my mind with how much my hands ache to touch her face and trace over the soft expression before me. Since I pressed my lips to hers this morning, I've thought of nothing else. It's driven me insane with the desire to claw back to the place we once were. Where she reached out and touched me. Where she was my mate.

Where I felt her within me.

My hand hesitantly lifts after I gather my bravado, after I tell myself I _can_ reach out. When I brush her hair back she smiles a little, her eyes widening as she takes me in. I forget that this experience isn't just mine. It's new for her too. That as I travel into the wading waters between us, she is too. And we are learning together.

Somehow she keeps her thoughts straight enough to answer my question, albeit a little stumbling as I do the motion again. "I-I, um, know that - I know you're very good at set piece strategy. I'm not stupid and I most certainly know when I'm outclassed, so I always make it a point to draw you out. Because you are more impatient than me when it comes to this game."

It thrills me that her words fumble. "Clever."

"I do try."

The silence stretches between us and I path my eyes over her, feeling the warmth around me and between us as the storm passes outside. My hands corrall the arms of the chair I'm in. "What are you thinking?"

She blinks when the fire pops loudly, shattering embers around. "There is nothing specific. I'm just happy here with you."

"I'm happy you're happy with me."

"I'm happy that you're happy that, well-" she grins, "I'm happy."

We laugh as my mind recounts the last time we played and the well deserved punishment I received at her hands. It's oddly funny, but knowing now how sharp her tongue can be, makes hearing her softly spoken words and musical laughter that much better.

"Did you really teach Ahmiran how to play?"

She nods, "I did. I used to go to the barracks and watch the warriors play. I learned from them."

"Did you learn to fight from them too?"

She nods slowly.

"Why did you never go to the wall as a proper soldier?" I can't even put into words how glad I am she didn't go. That she wasn't hurt or in harms way.

"There are a few reasons, but mostly because it wasn't my duty to do so. My duty was to study and become a scribe. Ahmiran was required to go as the oldest child." She blinks away whatever memories she hides there.

"Rachel?"

She inclines her head to me, and she looks so pretty I almost forget what I was going to ask. _Almost_. "What were you just thinking?"

"Now?"

"Yes. What memory did you have?"

She lowers head head, and my eyes trace her dark curls and wings as she stares at the rug. "A season before I became The Chosen, Ahmiran left for the wall. I just remember standing and watching him go, wondering the same thing, why I wasn't going instead. I'd be a better swordsworn than him, even now."

As alluring as the image of Rachel in silver armor would be, I feel it twist my heart. "You can't."

Rachel looks up at me and her frown pushes more words from my lips to justify my statement. "I couldn't bear it to have you far away and on a wall, possibly in harms way. It would drive me mad."

Her smile warms through me when it flickers back to her lips. "My life is with you now."

I'm elated she doesn't say it's a duty. "I'm glad."

"Me too." She nervously eyes the room. "Between us though, I always did want to be a warrior like the men you see in town."

I want to probe further, truly, especially with how hesitant she is to say it, with how she prefaces it as a secret between us. However, when she mentions those massive tattooed men, I pinch my lip with my teeth and gather my courage to ask the question I've been dying to for some time.

"Can I see your brand?"

Rachel swallows, looking around again. "My brand?"

I peer around the empty room for effect. "Should I make everyone leave, so it's suitable for you?"

She laughs, a lazy smile spreading her face.

My voice is hoarse with the dryness I feel in my throat. "Yes."

Her expression changes, as she touches the silk she wears. "I-" she doesn't finish whatever it was she was going to say.

I watch her hand move, watch her fingers fiddle with the material and I train my gaze down from there, to her side, to where she touches over the tattooing that must be underneath. It's a very enticing thing, watching that motion and wanting to know, wanting to see it. It's consuming of all my faculties and even as I speak, I hope my placating to her unspoken wishes is enough to change her mind.

"You don't have to. When you are ready, I would be honored."

She seems to think about it, contemplate it. And somehow this is more intimate than our previous touches. I don't understand why it is, how it could ever be.

"I suppose now is fine."

I swallow haltingly, as I take in enough air to hurt my lungs with the depth. My hands immediately go numb, my breathing turning shallow and quick. As embarrassing as it is, I feel like I'm panting for it because truly the idea is so very arousing in it's own right.

When I take her hands and help her to her feet, she leans on the table staring at me. Her look prompts the a question out of my mouth. "What?"

She wets her lips quickly. "To be fair, it will hurt my feelings if you say anything teasing. Please don't."

"I swear, I won't."

I can hardly find words that make sense in any form, let alone a tease.

"Okay." She nods, satisfied.

When her hands start to pull at the silk tie at her waist I realize with incredible speed that she is going to do it. Oh my Goddess, she is going to do it. Tiredness gone in an instant, I watch as the tie comes loose and she smoothes half of her silken shift over her body, her ill-placed modesty intact. The other half, she shrugs down her shoulder, resting it on the bow of her wing.

And I'm left staring at the bare skin of her side.

My eyes trace over her shoulder and then down, where the brand is inked on her skin. I really want to stop there and just look at it, but I can't because my eyes keep going, moving down to take in the jut of her hip and the seemingly endless length of her leg. I'm staring at the shadow the shift makes beyond her pelvis, where I know the flatness of her stomach will melt into the space between her legs, when Rachel clears her throat.

I flinch with the sound, blushing instantly. "I'm sorry." I blink hard and focus my eyes where they are supposed to be.

The design is larger than I imagined, and takes up the whole of her flank. In the very center, it looks like a window made of pillars, and a tree within it, an arch at the top. And behind that, the circular sloping patterns I had seen on others. "What does the window mean?"

She looks down and when she leans her hand moves enough for me to see the swell of her breast. It is twice as captivating because her hand is cupped around it, forcing it to be that much more pronounced in its curving.

It takes everything in me to actually comprehend her words.

"The pillars and archway are representative of Emberlin, so other Thursian Winlean will know it is my home. The tree is representative of wisdom, for my family, because before we were silk traders we were the teachers of the old clans."

"A teacher?" I lean back in my chair and grin at the memories between us.

"Yes, I'm good at teaching people lessons." Rachel looks up from her inspection and smiles wickedly between the dark swirls of her hair.

Our shared moments, regardless of how coarse, makes me want to pull her into my arms and kiss her. And when she drags her hand through her hair and brushes it off her face in a wave, then I want to do much more than kiss her. I want to burn my lips over her branding and twist my hands in her hair as I claim her in every way possible.

It might be my imagination, but as her dark eyes hold me, I think she intentionally lets the material slacken, so I can see a little more of her naked body. And when her leg shifts, and the silk slides from it, when I'm left with nothing but her hip and that beautiful thigh, then the images of mating with her come so swiftly I'm left breathing hard again.

I can feel her eyes on me and I look up. Her eyebrows shift, measuring me. She takes me in. "Are you satisfied?"

Hardly. "I want to look at you more, if you'll let me. You are so beautiful."

Rachel swallows then, edging a tentative smile. "Thank you. Of course."

My hands twine over the wood of my arm rests, in much the way I desire to touch her. I keep my eyes on the inking, imagining over and over how it would feel to kiss and touch it. How warm and soft her skin must be, shining like satin in the firelight.

"What would you teach if you could?"

"I don't know." She smiles as her eyes lift from my fingers. "Strategy."

I laugh despite how clouded my mind is. "Everything you do, has purpose, doesn't it?"

"Yes, everything."

The thunder comes then, rattling and drawing over us, as with that singular purpose she shifts closer. I watch the firelight pull over her exposed hip as her muscles shift under her skin. I want to put my hands all over the bone and sinew, feel it, squeeze it. I race my eyes up to hers and she licks her lips, wetting them. They shine in the firelight. "Everything I do has a purpose."

I don't think I can breathe, but I struggle for something to say to erase the pure bolt of want I feel. "When would anyone have the opportunity to see this and decipher the picture?"

She pulls the silk closer to herself, even as it trails away, skirting and obscuring everything I want to see. "If I were to die, they would. That was how they identified people in the war and got their remains back to their homeland and families."

The way she says it, talks about her own death, is so very casual and easy. It instantly takes all the silly sexual excitement I felt from my illicit peeking and it wipes all of it from my mind. Her eyes are on me then, and she must read my face, read how twisted I am over those words.

She gives me an endearing smile, stopping short of me. "Quinn, it is simply a tradition. I don't believe anyone will ever have to read it for that. I don't think anyone will ever see it but you." She pulls her shift back over her shoulder and ties it closed. "The arching scrollwork, you already know about."

I shake the images of someone touching her skin and reading her brand out of my mind. "It is very beautiful. It is a family lineage _almost_ worthy of you."

She smiles and I watch the color literally burn up the plains of her cheeks when she looks down. "Thank you."

Its so endearing, that blush. It's so incredible and perfect and gentle that it makes me fall in love again _that_ much farther. I can't really grasp at another thought other than that. However as fast as the thrumming of emotion riptides through me, Rachel's smile fades. I'm worried about the words that will be on those lips when she looks up.

And she finally does, worrying her lip with her teeth. "Quinn?"

I keep my voice level. "Yes, Rachel?"

"Will you tell me something?"

My eyes flit over her, take in the way she holds her silken shift close to her, a shield in place of the emotional ones that have fallen between us. "Of course."

"Why were you so cruel to me? Beyond fear, because that will only go so far. I'm having trouble rationalizing how terrible and cold you could be to me."

My throat goes dry again for other reasons. "Why do you want to know?"

"Because by now I deserve the truth."

She's right.

I direct my gaze to the hearth, to the embers that smolder at the base, at the orange flickers that dance. It hurts to discover that my foolish belief that an apology would undo everything, is just that. My heart tries to remember how to beat, because her words frighten me. They make me think about things that are hard for me to think about.

They make me worry that I'm one wrong sentence away from losing what we have together.

"When I was younger, I loved my brother exactly how you love Ahmiran." I'm unable to look at Rachel as I answer her question. "It was foolish, because now I realize all the love I gave him was a tool for him to manipulate me. And he did, scaring me with things, making me worry about you, about my future." I open my mouth to say more, and then close it because I can't.

"What things?" It feels like she pulls closer to me, curious.

My eyes bounce wildly from the table, to her feet and then rug, and back again. "That as my mate you would take things by force from me." I stare at my hands. "Sexual things. Things that as a young girl are frightening in their own right without the added concern of force being applied to it."

"Obviously, you know I would never take anything by force from you now."

I nod, smiling a little. "Yes, obviously, but that didn't make it any better in the beginning or any easier. It upset me, made me fearful for my safety." I sigh, committing to what truths I _should_ say, "and then there were other things, jealous things."

"Jealous?"

I look up at her then, at the confusion in her brown eyes. "Yes. People were so enamoured with you, the Inquisitor and my mother especially. They said you would make me a better Queen, which made me naturally assume I wasn't very good."

Rachel inclines her head with a smile. Her hair tumbling in the firelight. "You will be a good Queen."

Shrugging lightly, I attempt to verbalize the truth as I see it. "I will be a good Queen only with you by my side, because they were right. You make me better. I wasn't ready to hear that as a child, but now I can appreciate the truth of it."

"Was it easy? To be like that to me?"

I purse my lips in thought. "No, not easy exactly. It played right into the fact that I'm not good at emotion. I thought to have it was to be weak." I laugh a little to myself. "It seems so ignorant now, but I didn't realize that there could be layers to me, that even a Queen could be different from one Winlean to the next. A ruler to some, council to others, a friend, a mate." I sigh, fiddling with the material at my thighs. "I make no excuses for my previous behavior because it was unforgivable, but I have grown into someone I believe is finally worthy of you."

I glance up at Rachel, frowning in apology. "I wish it wouldn't have taken me quite so long because I regret-" I shake away the wave of thoughts that follow, "as I told you I have finally learned how to regret."

"What do you regret specifically?" Rachel probes before moving closer and gracefully slides back to the rug where I'm sitting.

I have trouble looking at her while I admit these things, so I close my eyes as I take a breath. The scent of her skin comes then, and I drown it the familiarity of it. "I regret this, missing turns of this with you." I rake order into my hair as I rally enough courage to turn to where Rachel is sitting, catching her eyes. "I regret not being strong enough or good enough until now. I regret making you cry. The time I saw and the countless times I did not."

"There were tears shed. I won't lie about that Quinn."

"On both our parts, I can assure you." I blink at the memories of it that seem so distant now. "I regret not doing the things I should have done."

"What things should you have done?"

She looks so remarkably beautiful it hurts. It makes my truths so much easier and yet harder at the same time. "I should have loved you more. _Better_. Used my words to make you smile instead of frown. I should have mated with you long ago and had you standing on the dais with me." I pause, wondering what her reaction will be to that. She regards me evenly, though her eyes brighten slightly.

"I have a confession, Rachel."

"What is your confession, Quinn?" Her gaze bores into me as she edges forward on her knees.

"That day in the library I meant everything I said until the end. That I wanted those things, that I would give anything up for you." I arch my eyebrow to add inflection to my words. "I still want those things, with you and only you."

Rachel nods and looks away, clearly that sore point still quite stinging. "That was a terrible day."

I shift uncomfortably in my chair. "That is my single biggest regret between us. I wanted to keep going, wanted to apologize, wanted to mend things right then and there."

"Why didn't you then?"

"Because I'm an idiot?" I offer.

Rachel smiles and then laughs lightly. I join her, and once it dwindles, Rachel traces the arm of my chair with a fingertip. "Why did you say those things to me that night? What were you thinking when you said them?"

My stomach rolls uncomfortable at the question because its so difficult to answer. "I wish I could answer, but I don't know. I believe I was afraid of how much I wanted you."

"But I'm your mate, Quinn." Rachel whispers softly, shifting closer to push the statement home. My knees grazes her sides and I move them aside on instinct as her words pour into me. "I'm supposed to make you feel things, make you want things. There is nothing to fear from that."

"Everyone in my life has manipulated me at some point. At that time, I didn't know any better or any different. I'm helpless when it comes to you." I taste the words as I roll them in my mouth. "I've never been utterly helpless before, but with you, I am. You have _so much_ power over me."

Rachel's voice is darker, warmer, when it comes. "What kind of power do I have over you Quinn?"

I arch an eyebrow at her, holding her eyes as they smolder at me. "You know what power, Rachel. I told you what I would give up for you. I meant it." I clear my throat. "And the physical you know as well. You've been within me already."

Rachel shudders a breath. "And if we move forward from here? What of my powers then?"

She wants to hear me say it. She must feel how much I care, but perhaps the saying matters. "I'm willing to trust you and no one else - with my life, and my secrets and I'm willing to let you see how deep your power can drag me. _Because_ I love you." I hesitate and then commit to the motion of brushing a hand through Rachel's hair again. It feels like it should be natural, so I do it again to commit the motion to memory.

Rachel's eyes flutter closed and she leans into the touch. When they open again they are that same penetrating brown that has haunted my dreams. "Swear it to me and I'll be willing to do the same. I want to do the same. I understand now."

I nod silently because I can't put sound to the words.

Rachel lifts to her knees before me her hand falling softly to the skin of my thigh, and it makes it infinitely more difficult to speak. "I love you, but swear it to me. I want to hear you say it."

From this close, I can't not touch her, and I slide my hands down her arms, curl my fingers into the skin of her sides, feel her breathe into the space between us. "I swear it. I want to treat you like my mate, like you deserve to be." She attempts to press into my lips, but I hold her still as I finish my thoughts. If I'm going to purge everything, then I want to make sure I say it all for her.

"Rachel, that means more than just what happens between us. It means you will be with me on that dais, as the future queen to all the eyes in the kingdom. You will make uncomfortable decision and good ones too. And we will do it together. I swear it."

Rachel swallows, trembling a little in my hands under the gravity of the statement. It's absolutely ravishing and endearing. "And I swear to do all that and protect your secrets and be the one person you can trust as we come to those decisions."

"I need someone who I can trust." I say absently when the images of my horrible secret bombards me.

"I'm here." Rachel prompts, her hand finding mine and squeezing it. "For the rest of our lives, I'm here beside you."

The words do more than she could possibly understand. "I will tell you everything soon, but not tonight."

Rachel nods. "No, not tonight."

I stand in a daze, slowly pulling Rachel up beside me. I hold her eyes, revel in her and her undefinable affections. My fingers move of their own accord, slipping between Rachel's fingers, along her palm. I turn it over, languidly tracing the lines first with my eyes and then with my hands, until my palm presses to hers and our grip weaves together. "I've had a beautiful day with you. I can't wait to have countless more."

She dusts her thumb over my index finger, and I glance at the tugging smile on her lips. "I can't wait either."

In this moment all I want to do is kiss her senseless. I watch as she pulls back, her eyes catching the light and shining. With the look on her face, the warmth I see, showering her in kisses and touches is the only way to express how deeply I feel. There are no words for it. I don't know what she is thinking as she pulls back out of my arms, but I feel a pinch in my chest and swallow back on how hard it is to let her go.

I dwell on it, use it to strengthen my resolve to follow her to her side of the table. I want her to stop, come back into my embrace. Mate with me, right here, right now. So when Rachel does stop and turns back to regard me, I'm not positive if it's reality or my imagination.

She inclines her head thoughtfully, her fingers brushing the cast away soldier pieces. "May I make a request?"

I smile. "Of course."

"Will you kiss me again as you have all day?"

I blink at her, repeating her words as they sink into my skull. "Kiss you as I've been kissing you all day? Shouldn't we have people on call to interrupt and make it accurate?"

She laughs. "Perhaps," Rachel's face blushes cutely, "I would prefer it if we didn't. I would like to have something _more_, something more _tangible_ to send me to sleep tonight."

"Something more tangible?" I lick my lips. "Does this something more begin with a kiss?"

"Ideally, it begins with a kiss, yes."

I hold out my hand to her and pull her to me. I find it funny how even though we've shared only a handful of kisses, that somehow we are able to come together in a perfect mesh of lips. All I can focus on is how warm her lips are. I tilt my head and in response Rachel parts her lips for me. Our tongues touch, breath exchanges, and on the second pass of her tentative exploration of my mouth a deep pang of desire paints heat through me. I tighten my hands on her, safe in the knowledge that we were _always_ meant to do this, to twist our mouths together and explore one another.

Rachel's hands clamp on my shoulder and after a firmer press into my mouth, string into my hair and curl it in her grip. She pulls back from my lips. "I love the way your hair feels in my hands. I've imagined kissing you like this for so long."

"I have always wanted to touch yours. Just... like... this..." And I do, dragging my fingers through the length of it to accent my languid words. "Ever since I was a little girl, it has always mesmerized me. So dark. So luscious." I nudge her nose with mine, and when she tilts her head the indicated direction I pepper kisses over her cheek.

She works her words out between my motions. "You can when you want. As my mate, you can at your discretion."

Hearing Rachel call me her mate, the smile on her face in the dim light showing how much it means to her, makes it impossible for me not to kiss her again. I press into her mouth swiftly and when she gasps, I lick the length of her tongue, turning her intake of air into an igniting whine of desire.

Her hands tighten and when a shivered moan rises from Rachel's throat I open my eyes to a surprised pair of brown ones. She smiles despite the blush turning her cheeks hot in the shadows. "Quinn, I-"

"Yes?" I press, my eyes tracing over her face, down her shoulder. My gaze hangs on the silken material over her chest. My breath falters, caught up in the outline of her breasts, at the realization that her nipples are hardening from my kisses. "You are so blindingly beautiful Rachel."

It feels so silly to say, even though I mean it with everything I am.

"Thank you Quinn." After a moment, she presses her forehead to mine. On her toes, she sways a little. Her laugh is soft as she shuffles her feet. "I'm dizzy. It makes it hard to stand like this even though I want to."

I tighten my arms around her waist, anchoring her to me. "Better?"

Rachel let's go a breath, her fingers clamping hard on my back. "Yes." Her eyes bounce over mine. "Quinn?"

"Yes?"

She lowers her voice, leaning closer to me if it's even possible. "I have another request, my mate."

The word makes my heart skip and my hands grasp for the plain of Rachel's back, firming me as close as I can get. "Anything, _my_ mate." I don't think I'll ever get enough of saying that incredibly possessive word.

I shiver as Rachel drags her fingers down the silk on my back until she finds the seams that allow my wings through. I pull back enough to see Rachel's face shift as she caresses against the bare skin. She clamps her teeth on her lip, feeling me. "I want to see you, feel you."

Her words suck every thought out of my mind and I press into her mouth, rolling my eyes closed when she does something few have ever done to me, and certainly no one in this context. She touches my wings. Drags her fingertips along the bow in both until it presses a strangled gasp from my chest.

Rachel smiles against my lips, very pleased with herself.

"I want to see you and feel you too." I kiss her again to mask how overwhelmed the motion makes me as she does it again.

"I can't wait anymore." Rachel breaks the kiss, breathless, her mouth hanging open as she rushes air. I focus on it, on the frenzy of her breath while her frantic hands pull the tie at my hip and gather the loosening material in her fingers. I can't think, I can't breathe. My whole reality is pinned to where Rachel's hands part the cloth over me wide and loops the material off my shoulders and then further down my wings.

"Oh, Quinn. I've thought of seeing you like this again so many times."

Her voice sets me on fire. I reach out following her motions, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I pull at the tie at Rachel's waist. "Oh, Rachel." I echo, tugging, twisting the silk, and baring smooth bronze skin. The silk flutters out of my view and I stare dazed, my eyes everywhere on her. I scorch my gaze across the skin that I was illicitly peeking at earlier, now bared to me. She is so beautiful, soft, she looks warm. I want to touch her, kiss her.

Rachel clears her throat, breaking my concentration on her. "I hope the seriousness in your face is because you are contemplative and not disappointed."

I swallow compulsively to get my voice to work. "No, Goddess. You are stunning." My voice cracks, my throat dries, my heart thundering so hard I'm not sure if I spoke at all. I try to think of something more to say, but my mind can't focus on anything other than the smooth sloping lines of Rachel's body.

"Let me see you again." Rachel whispers, reaching out hesitantly to press aside my hair. Her fingers softly tug at something in my hand and I realize belatedly I'm holding the tail edge of Rachel's silk shift over me. I drop my hand, baring myself.

I _want_ her to see me, despite how excruciatingly vulnerable it feels. And yet, as I take in Rachel's excited eyes cutting lines across me, it feels so very wonderful too.

"Is that better?"

"Yes." Rachel breathes deeply and I memorize the way her breasts shift with the motion. "You're beautiful."

I blush as her eyes dip and trace over me. Now that I can see her nipples, I can't think of anything except how badly I want to touch them and feel the ridging under my fingertips. How I want to lick them, suck them, and feel Rachel arching against me as I do it.

When I can finally tear my gaze away, I lift my eyes to Rachel's smile and it's so earnest and sincere it makes me melt.

"What are you smiling for?"

Rachel shakes her head, tossing curls of black all over her shoulders. "I've thought about this for a long time."

"How long?"

"Since I was much younger," Rachel drags a fingertip over my shoulder and my skin prickles in it's wake. Her hand pulls away and then when her teeth find her lip again, her hand traces the outer swell of my breast. My knees weaken a little with how quickly I'm breathing.

"When was that?" I feather the back of my fingers over Rachel's breast, feeling the way her nipple drags between the creases of my fingers.

"Since I realized we could be intimate like this."

Emboldened by my motions, Rachel cups my breast, her thumb rolling over the peak. It fires a bolt of heat straight down me, ending between my legs. It aches and I take a steadying breath before Rachel's rapt gaze. I've never ached like this before, wanted like this before. I pant softly, mirroring Rachel's gentle teasing touches. "I used to think about this too, after I read the book and you were gone for seasons at a time."

My back submits me into an arch as both Rachel's hands move in to cup me. I press into the warmth of her hands as I close my eyes. "And when I imagined the pictures."

She moves into me, scorching the length of her body against mine and blurring the space between us into nothingness. Her arms wrap me up, kissing lips rouse soft moans from my throat I didn't know I could make. It's as if the body I thought I knew so well, has secrets only Rachel can unlock.

Only my mate.

She leaves me gasping for air as her lips move to my neck and shoulder. My whole body chills under the onslaught. "I want everything in those pictures." Rachel whispers over the wet places she's kissing. I shudder as her tongue traces my clavicle.

I remember the images like lightning mapping over the back of my mind and it draws a groan from my chest. The image that means the most to me though, is Rachel's. Her drawing, her desires, from her book. I would die a thousand times to give her everything she wants. "Myself as well, oh Goddess Rachel. But I want _your_ picture."

She knows what I'm saying, and her eyes burn darker, fueled by the blush that comes over her face. I drown in the excited smile on her lips. I can't even move as she pulls further back, her hands sliding all over me, a thousand places at once. I'm transfixed, immovable as Rachel bends down and I watch a slow pink tongue flick out over my nipple.

I arch farther, coaxing with my body and the desperate whine I press for her. "Did you read the book on your own?" I ask, and I don't know why because I don't want to talk anymore. I pant heavily, my lips tingling as I pet down Rachel's shoulders and pull her into me by the cream arch in her wings.

She makes the softest sound then, opening her lips and kissing wetly. Her eyes flick up to me in question and I hold her gaze. "More."

Rachel's breath trembles through her nose and she widens her mouth, encircling just how I want her to. Her hands tighten on my back, fingers curl, eyes close. I shiver when my mate finally pulls back, straightens up and rushes to my lips fast enough that our teeth click loud in the quiet of the rain. It jars me and we both reach for our mouths at the same time.

I try to keep a straight face despite it, but Rachel laughs and then I can't _not_ laugh either. As strange as it might be, it makes me love her more as we stand together and giggle. I can't help but feel that it reclaims a little of the small girls we once were who _should_ have giggled together. When her eyes catch on mine and her laughs slow, I read as plain as daylight she feels it too. "It's good to laugh with you."

I sigh happily. "I never realized how light you can make my heart feel."

Slowly, she moves into me, arms circling loosely, the overwhelm in her smile meeting the skin of my neck. My hands move through her hair as I listen to her breath.

"I'm sorry for that." She breezes. "For being not quite as well timed with my kisses as I would like."

"I'm not." My smile broadens. "We promised we would be better in time."

She snorts and then places a warm kiss on my shoulder. "Yes, I read it."

It takes a moment for me to remember what we were talking about. The book. I glance down at the side of her face, feeling her breasts rise and fall against me slowly. "What did you read, my mate?"

I feel her swallow against my shoulder. "Everything."

I scoop my arms around her, drawing her still closer. When Rachel picks her head up off my shoulder, I touch my nose to hers. "Nerves don't look very royal on you, my love."

She shakes her head, grinning as I tease her. "I don't know why I suddenly felt them."

"No secrets, you know why I'm sure." I whisper softly.

"I want it all." Rachel presses her face to my hair after a moment of contemplation. When I try to pull her back, look into her eyes, she holds me close - too tightly for me to separate us. I encircle her, wings and all. "I want it all, Quinn. Everything within that book. I want you in every way I can have you."

Chills scream over the side of my body where her words and lips brush my ear. I fumble for words, anything. As she fills my heart to the brim I need to think of _something_ to say.

"I want what you want to give me as well."

"I'm giving you everything as your mate."

When she pulls back, finally looking at me, I smile, kiss, pull, nuzzle as close as I can get. My lips move over hers, "Rachel? I have a request of you."

Rachel laughs before nudging me back. "What is that request, my princess?"

And her tone and carefree sweetness, makes the question so much harder to ask. "I want to touch-" I can't finish the sentence and instead direct my eyes downward suggestively. My brow hikes when I return to her eyes.

Rachel actually smirks, right before her lips catch on her teeth. "Oh. I will let you if you say it." She toys with me, her teeth flashing out to nip my nose.

I sigh, rolling my eyes away from her. "Don't be mean." I can feel myself blushing hotter with each passing moment. "You know exactly what I'm speaking of."

"Yes, I do know." She presses a kiss to my cheek. "However, what if I told you that through the turns I've yearned to hear you request these things of me." She presses off me, leaving me staring at her as she moves through the firelight. I take in her body as she moves to the divans collecting pillows, wrapping them up in her arms before passing me and spilling them before the fire. She nudges one lightly with her toe, making the whole of her shadows change, outlining the long elegant lines I want to burn my hands over.

When her dark eyes come back up to me, she lifts a brow. "Would you say it then, knowing that?"

I couldn't deny her anything. "Yes."

I take my cue, moving forward until she's in my arms again. Her lips kiss gently and with slow hands I move her back to the pillows. I press with my kisses, my palms, sitting Rachel down with me.

I nudge her farther back, until she finally relaxes, fanning out beneath me. "Rachel?"

"Yes?" She rushes, her hands holding on to my arms.

"My mate?"

I feel her grip tighten. "Yes, Quinn?"

I duck my head in and close my eyes. The nervousness threads up into me then, not because of the words, but because I'm asking to do something I've wanted to and fulfilling her desires. And if I say it, I will be _able_ to. "I want to touch your center and feel your arousal for me."

Rachel groans softly, her hand sliding from my arm to my wrist as she anchors me to her. I sit up, trying to find something more to say to the beautiful Winlean beneath me. She deserves sonnets and poems and proclamations I don't have the prowess to draft. I go to tell her as much, but Rachel's hand pulling on my wrist makes me shift.

She guides my hand down as I hold my breath. There isn't anything more incredible than watching my own hand slide down the valley between Rachel's breasts, over the plain of her stomach. And when the shortened dark hair tickles my fingers I glance up at the wild dark beauty beneath me.

"Tell me I'm your mate again." Rachel whispers, her eyes fluttering closed as she guides my hand further and I feel the first brush of warmth and wetness I read about. Dreamed about. I hesitate a glance down as Rachel let's my hand go, sliding the very tips of my fingers down as Rachel makes space for me.

"I love you, my mate." My heart is pounding so hard I don't hear myself, it's like an echo, deep under water. I clear my throat, lost in the feeling radiating from my fingertips. I want to be closer to her, desperately so. I remember an image from the book and adjust so I can stretch against her side and capture her lips.

I taste her mouth, duel my tongue against Rachel's. When I resume my motions with my hand, I peck kisses against her lips because it's too hard to focus on everything. And when Rachel moans softly against my mouth and parts her legs wide enough for my fingers to trail against the slick skin exposed with the motion, I can't even kiss her.

"Quinn." Rachel's voice is breathless, smoky and dark. In the spall space between us, it's so indescribably intimate. So unbearably beautiful. I can't feel my fingers anymore, not when I realize Rachel's eyes widen a little with every slow trace. That when I touch her hardened peak, her lips part in a silent gasp and she trembles.

"Yes, love?"

Her hands are in my hair then, caressing. "Do I look appealing to you? Am I like you dreamed your mate would be before we were chosen for one another?"

A bubble of affection rolls through me and I grin. Rachel laughs softly and pulls my hair over my face. "Don't look at me like that."

I blow my obscuring strands away. "Like what?"

"Like you are."

I smirk. "Like your question is so very sweet because clearly we were both very young and didn't think of such things?"

"Yes, exactly like that."

I pause on my slow swipes and circle lightly at the place where she was trembling before. It's incredible, watching Rachel arch into my motions, her mouth opening in a silent cry. When I slow, she bites her lip with a smile, relaxing back.

"However, my mate," I continue, kissing the shell of her ear, learning her. "As an adult, yes, this is what I dreamed of."

I nestle my face against hers, staring down to where my fingers dip out of sight and then reappear with each caress to shimmer in the firelight. I can hardly get the words out as I watch it, as it makes the ache I felt before hurt to the brink of agony. "Dear Goddess, this is beyond what I dreamed of, more than anything I could have imagined."

I press more firmly, narrowing in on the hard spot I felt in my slow caresses. Rachel bucks against me, her face turning, lips searching for mine. "Kiss me." She rushes.

As her chest rises up to meet mine, I crash my lips into hers. Its a blur, lips moving over hers, her throat, her breasts. I drag my tongue so I can see the shimmer of saliva down the length of Rachel's branded copper skin. As she writhes, I stamp my lips over every shred of her I can reach.

"Quinn." Rachel whines desperately, her fingers squeezing hard to the pillows, "touch me harder and faster."

From this close, I not only hear the sharp intake of air from my mate, but I feel it through me. It mesmerizes me, watching the counter motion of her chest rising and hips pressing down. I bite my lip, my arm aching as I comply with her soft mews. As the motion becomes more pronounced and rhythmic I realize with a start that this is how Rachel will move when we couple.

That if I drink the potion, and claim my crown, I will _feel_ this on me.

That if I slide my fingers down now, right now, I can feel it as well.

My lip bloodies I bite it so hard with the thought.

Rachel makes a sound above me, something yearning and desperate, so I lift my head from where it's pillowed against her, moving as close as I can to her side. "I love you." Rachel moans delicately and pulls me into an urgent deep kiss. My lips fumble against hers as I struggle to keep my fingers and motions steady.

I pull back, dizzy, the whole room throbbing around me to the tempo of my racing heart. "You did say something more tangible, my mate." I slow my feverish motions, Rachel coming to a rest under me, her hair twisting all over like spilled ink.

"Yes."

"Did you mean it?"

She nods quickly, stretching to peck a kiss to my lips. She nibbles lightly as I struggle to keep my motions slow. I turn a little, focusing on where my finger slides down. Rachel keeps pulling at my lips, as I close my eyes and memorize what I feel as I find the place where her body will allow me into her. I circle once, trailing around it and through wetness thick enough to make me reciprocate the arousal. I whine breathlessly.

"Quinn," she heaves under my touch. "That feels wonderful."

"It does for me too." I choke on the rush of air I scramble for as her entrance flutters under my fingers. I think about kissing her mouth, her breasts, her neck, I have every intent to be the mate she wants and deserves for me to be. However, I can't - I just pant until I think I'll pass out. My lips buzz as I circle even slower, feel the slickness and warmth, the soft inset that pulls for me.

"Quinn."

Goddess, I love hearing just my name on her lips.

"Yes, Rachel?"

"Do you want to feel inside my center?"

Despite myself, the question from my mate makes me moan, makes everything inside me spasm and tighten. My fingers come to a rest, twitching in expectation. "I want to, yes."

"Then please, my mate, before I lose my mind." Is her instant reply.

I comply without hesitation, because I will follow her commands until my last breath. I can feel her opening give as I press my fingers against it. Rachel sucks in a breath and kisses my shoulder. I hold her eyes as they bounce across mine. I add more pressure, Rachel's mouth opening, eyes widening, hands grasping. And as her body gives to me, I press until I'm all the way in and Rachel's moan ignites the air with my name.

I can't pull her close enough as waves of emotion crackle through me. I pant my soft cries against her lips as she echoes them back. I swallow brokenly, my eyes blurring as it all becomes so very real. As everything crashes together and I realize the magnificent creature in my arms is _my_ Rachel. My mate. The love of my lifetime. This beauty that I would crawl to through broken glass was the little girl I flew from at break neck speeds, she is the Queen I want to be seated in a throne beside me, even if I did once take her crown from her. She is mine. All our broken past and glorious future-

_Mine_.

Emboldened I do the motion again, so I can hear her and make it real. "Quinn, oh Goddess!" Her hands grapple, holding me to her by my wings.

"I love you, Rachel!" I don't care if anyone hears how desperately I love her. I don't care what anyone thinks except Rachel, and I want her to know forever that she is the only one in this place that matters. I pull back and thrust forward again a little faster, rewarded for my efforts by her strangled moan and her hips moving into my hand.

"Again. More."

Oh goddess, her command makes me lightheaded. "More?" My voice rasps, unsure if I heard her right.

"Faster and deeper into me. It feels better and hurts less when you push."

Her words twist me up and I can't breathe. I don't want to hurt her, but then at the same time I remember what it felt like to have her inside me. How achingly perfect it felt and I do want her to have that. I press my palm tightly to my mate and with each short movement, my hand begins to click wetly against the peak I was rubbing earlier.

It's sublime to listen to the soft gasping cries from Rachel and feel her slick passage cradle me. My breath rushes, mixes with Rachel's, and as she pulls into an arch, I recognize tears in her eyes. They spill down her temples when her eyes squeeze tightly. I know she's hunting for that much desired pinnacle we read about, that great mystery climax that I've heard people laude.

I pray I can help her find it. Repositioning, I press my palm to the hardness and hook my fingers, pressing to the soft patch inside I read about. I do it so I can kiss her, help her along. It's what I would want, her lips on mine.

When the motion makes Rachel just about fly off the pillows, I know I've found what I'm looking for. I hang there and pulse my fingers rhythmically. It makes it easier for me to kiss her, and I do feverishly. I catch her lips between moans, licking my mate's teeth when she cries my name.

"Quinn."

"Yes, Rachel?"

"I love you."

"I love _you_."

"I feel like something is going to tumble over inside me." She fists her hands in her hair, covering her eyes with her palms. "It's so close." She wipes her eyes, staring at me with more intensity than I've ever seen. Her words come through a clenched jaw. "Right there and yet not, dear Goddess."

I speed up my motions, my arm all but numb, far beyond the point of pain. "What can I do, my love?"

Rachel growls softly, sending chills through me so hard I almost feel what she is describing, the tumbling. It feels like something within me is about to teeter and fall off a cliff face.

"Let me touch you and make you feel as good as I do." Rachel whispers, panting. "Let me touch you and then perhaps it will be enough."

I nod, sliding my fingers free slowly. Rachel whines, "no, no. Don't go. Please." I claim her again softly, holding myself within her as she winces just enough to make me aware of the memories of soreness. I caress her hair softly, catching her lips.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not." She sits up, pressing my fingers that much deeper, but I can't even focus on that. Not when Rachel wraps me in a hug in the next instant. I close my eyes, holding her to me, feeling her heart pounding against me and within her as well. In the stillness between us, I feel like I'm made of water, and I'm leaking into her, and she's doing the same to me.

"Do you feel that?" I whisper, cupping the back of her head.

"Yes." She looks up at me, that glitter back in her eyes. "We're tying to one another."

I smile brokenly, letting her see how intensely those words resonate in my heart. "Then love me, my mate. So, we can complete it." I urge capturing her lips.

"I will."

"How will you?" I ask, trying to figure out how to position myself closer. Rachel's hands answer the question for me as they press on me until I'm sliding a leg over her hips. I hold myself inside her, hooking my fingers tighter so I don't slide free. She hisses softly, her hands tightening on me.

"I would do-." Rachel interrupts the sentence with a well placed kiss to my neck making my skin prickle all the way to my wings and toes. Her kiss melts from my neck, to my shoulder, and then chest. I arch back a little, giving Rachel room to breathe hot heavy breaths over my nipple.

Just the proximity makes me ache more for my mate.

"What things?" I bait.

Rachel's voice is matter-of-fact. "I will do everything to your body and soul, my mate."

I moan at the thought of it as her lips kiss, tongue trailing, hands squeezing. "My mate?" I whine, drawing Rachel's attention.

"Yes?"

"I want to do something to you."

"What is that?" Rachel probes, pulling closer, mouth seeking out my nipples again. I focus on where I can feel Rachel clenching softly around me with every small motion of her mouth. It makes it impossible for me to not want to feel her writhe under my motions again.

"I want to thrust into you again." I can hardly believe that it is my voice I hear, saying something so erotic, with such confidence. Rachel swallows audibly making me feel infinitely more powerful in the warmth of our love.

"I would like that." Rachel wedges around my breast, and if I wasn't inflamed before, I certainly am now seeing and hearing that as she devours me. "Can I touch you, please?"

"Not yet." I announce, drawing my eyes over her outline in what's left of the burning out firelight. I caress Rachel's chest and abdomen with my hand as I press her flat. Here above her, it's a magnificent view of all her body. I revel in it, how miraculous it has become. I can feel the taut muscles in her thighs flex against my rear, her pelvis pressed intimately to the space between my legs. I rock softly against her, my fingers moving slightly. I watch Rachel's body jump, betraying all the places that please her.

Leaning forward, I kiss her, brush my tongue against hers, explore her mouth.

Rachel tastes good, feels good, and makes my center slick with want. I had it happen a few times before, the most profound of those being the night in the library, but never to the extent that I'm certain my wetness is dripping to Her abdomen.

I break our kiss to shift enough to run my thumb over Rachel's hard nub. She whispers my name in response. As I continue the motion it makes my mate's breaths fast and ragged. My fingers slide out and then in again. If it's possible, she feels even more slick and relaxed than before. Even more ready for me. It sends sparks of exhilarations through my body. Rachel arches under me, hands holding my thighs as she allows me full reign over her body.

"Do you like this, my mate?" I ask slowly shifting my hand up a little to nudge the firm nub and then back down to slide as deep as I can into her.

"Yes, I do." Rachel reaches out and slides her hand along my thigh, mapping up to my hip where she squeezes. It makes me shudder. "Do you like that?"

"Yes." I gasp shifting focus to the beauty before me. Rachel's hand cups my breast gently, teasing my nipple with confidence. I clench in response, yearning to have Rachel to tighten around. The image of her fingers inside me coupled with the image before me tears a moan from my lips.

"What did you feel?" Rachel asks rapidly, her eyes lighting up to take in every detail.

I smile slightly. "I'm not sure, do it again." I tease, arching my eyebrow at Rachel when actually repeats the motion.

"You are terrible, Quinn." She announces softly, "you know exactly what you felt."

"I do know, yes." I catch my teeth in my lips. "I feel this as well." Rachel pauses, rolling her eyes closed as I slide into her deeply. Her soft moan catches the breath in my chest. What I don't tell her is that as her pleasure wraps her up every shred of me coats in perspiration. That being within her touches something primal within me, a desire to protect her, care for her, love her with every fiber of my being. It rends me to pieces, shattering me apart.

"I need you within me." I say suddenly stilling my motions. Desperation tears through me. "Do you want to touch me?"

My mate presses her cascade of hair from her shoulders, "I want to touch you so badly I could scream. And the way you are touching me makes me want to combust from the inside out."

I shift closer. "Touch me then." I don't know why, but suddenly I'm emotional. It bubbles up through me and chokes my words. "Touch me, please."

Rachel's face morphs in understanding. "Come to me my mate." She pulls me closer, mewing softly as she presses her center against mine. It feels so very intimate as we move together, hips rolling in time with one another. Her hands are everywhere on me, touching my hips and breasts with soft hands, warm palms squeezing and rubbing against my heated skin. I throb for her and to relieve it I brush against Rachel's abdomen, now feeling it slippery with my arousal.

Rachel's eyes widen and then smolder and set me aflame for her. "Is that your arousal?"

"Yes." Rachel gathers me up in her arms, and slips her hands up my sides and caresses across the bows of my wings again. I sigh and close my eyes, melding to the shifting motions the touches generate. I never could have imagined someone could handle me in a way that both excites me and relaxes me. My head lolls back and I let Rachel kiss and path her way over my body. I hesitate on the fragmented thoughts that move through my mind and grab the first one that forms cohesively. "You're _my_ beautiful queen, Rachel."

My mother once told me the power of words. It was so very long ago. I didn't understand her then, because I had never cared about anything enough to commit words to it that meant anything. I paid lip service to my duty and my title, my family and my homeland. Now, as Rachel's motions slow and her hand cups the back of my head and I look down into her dark eyes - I understand my mother's words.

And she's right, the words as I speak as Quinn to my mate, have just as much power as the words I'll speak as a Queen to a kingdom. Perhaps more.

"Say it again."

"You're my queen."

Rachel pulls me closer by the nape of my neck, her hands trembling. "Say it again."

"Rachel, you're my queen."

"Now tell me you love me."

I smile, tracing her nose with mine. "I love you. I have always loved you. Even when I didn't know it."

I know instantly I'm done for when her hand tightens under my hair. Her lips consume me, fingers seeking out where I want her. I don't even comprehend my words, as they rush from my lips.

"Yes, Rachel. Yes, please, yes."

And she claims me like she's done it a hundred times, a thousand. I cry out her name, arching into her. The suddenness of it, of her deep knowing motion puts the burn of tears in my eyes. I hang from her lips, as her thrusts start slowly, crushing any bastion I cling to as protection from the whirl of my feelings.

In contrast to the firmness of her motions between us as she builds my burn higher, her words are feather soft. "I always loved you too, and will for the rest of my life." She tightens her arm around me, whining against my lips, as I remember my fingers within her and match her tempo.

Then her motions become uncontrolled and unrestrained as she pushes my limits in every regard. In love, pain, depth, width, adoration and trust. I weather the fury of her love, and dimly in the back of my mind I can hear her saying she always wanted to be a warrior. I'm every bit her conquest as I surrender to her.

She hits everywhere on my body that I've shown as pleasurable, shredding every wall I've ever used to protect myself and for as difficult as it is for me to find emotion, as much as I've struggled for it my whole life, I have no qualms telling her my feelings now. "I love you. I love you. Don't stop, don't let me go."

She moans my name twisting her lips with mine and I cling to her, desperate. Agonized.

"Quinn." She breaks from my lips saying my name in a way she's never said it before. Her voice is higher, fuller, profoundly emotive. And I know exactly what she's found the moment that her moan cuts out and she goes silent.

"Yes, my mate. Let go." I pull her to my chest, holding her to me as her whole body goes rigid and her arms tightens on my waist. I stop my motions within her, feeling her body spasm and when her fingers inside me twitch, it's just enough to push that tumbling feeling over.

I clamp my eyes shut and press my face into Rachel's hair as the tide wave comes over me. However unlike her silence, I whine her name, so she knows it's her and only her that has my love.

In that moment, as her climax ebbs and mine starts, I feel a deep painful click. It feels like a door closing and locking tight, followed by the softest tickle of warmth. It's beyond the physical, the pinpoints of light and heat within me scrawling Rachel's name into my bones. She pours warmth and light into me and the lingering glitter is still there when she looks up at me and dusts a hand over my cheek ungainly.

I know instantly that it's complete. That we are bound.

"Quinn?" When she says my name, it's like hearing it the first time again. My emotions for her magnified to an extreme beyond anything I've ever felt. I don't know how mated pairs of Winlean survive this feeling. It winds my emotions until I feel the tightness in my throat that indicates I'm about to cry. "Oh Quinn." Rachel blinks, her breath coming quickly. "We're mated. I feel it. Do you feel it still?"

"Yes." I smile because there isn't anyone else in the entirety of the world that I would want to be bound by the soul to, than her.

"Are you all right?"

I assume she is referencing the physical and I nod. "Are you?"

She swallows. "Honestly?"

"Yes."

"I'm so very very sore."

I smile ruefully, and in agreement. "A day or so to recover, maybe two." I shift and Rachel slides her fingers free. The whip of pain is intense enough to rob the air from my chest and I gasp. "Or perhaps two hundred."

She laughs softly, petting over me as I get used to the empty feeling within me and the sharp sting everywhere else. "I believe that my desire will most likely overpower my prudence."

"Then give me at least the rest of tonight to sleep before we begin again."

She kisses me softly while smiling, because as much as I would love to pretend we will sleep, we both know better. I have no doubt the new day will find us twisted in one another.

And it starts again with Rachel's words before we can even escape the study. "Let me take you to our bed, my princess." She kisses me soundly. "I have something to request of you."

I don't think I'll ever hear the word _request_ again without thinking of us mating together, which makes me laugh because it's a word frequently used in court. Not that I will complain about the distraction it will provide, because I won't - not once will I for the rest of my life. Not as long as I have her to share it with.

And I do have her.

Finally.


End file.
